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FEANCE FACING GERMANY 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 



Speeches and Articles 

by / 

GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 

Premier of France 

• Translated from the French 
BY 

ERNEST HUNTER WRIGHT 




NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 Fifth Avenue 



,.f 



\\e 



Copyright, 1919 

BY 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



N 24 1913 

©GI.A5J 13D0 

Printed in the United States of America 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction xi 

I. Alsace-Lorraine — Morocco — Peace with Germany. 

Speech Delivered at the Dedication of the Monument to 

Scheurer-Kestner 1 

Speech Delivered in the Senate on the Franco-German 

Agreement of November 14, 1911 8 

II. The Three-year Law — the Conference op Berne — the 
Zabern Affair — Hansi. 

A Critical Hour 31 

The Conference of Berne 32 

A Plea for National Defense 33 

Resolution or Death 34 

The Effort Necessary 38 

For the Delegates at Berne 38 

The Question of Alsace-Lorraine 42 

A Question of Life and Death 43 

A Contrast 44 

Call the Roll! 46 

An Apology 48 

The Zabern Affair , 49 

Under the Great Saber . . , 52 

News from Germany 54 

Internationalism , 57 

Bargaining for Life y . \ 62 

Objectively 65 

For Military Defense 69 

A Question of Existence 71 

That Will Not Be 76 

A Problem of France 79 

Triumph or Perish 82 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

At Thermopylae 86 

Hansi! 89 

Neither Defended Nor Governed 95 

III. The War — The Declaration and the Preliminary 

Operations. 

On the Eve of Battle 101 

The State of War 108 

Before the Signal 114 

We Must Win 119 

The Two Flags 123 

From the Other Side 130 

A State of Mind 133 

Miilhausen, Lidge, and the Right 137 

Face to Face 139 

The Unity of France 144 

For Our Soldiers 146 

All Goes Well 149 

All Continues Well 150 

The Great Battle 152 

Ready 155 

The Preliminary Silence 158 

IV. From Charleroi to the Marne. 

The Prime Duty 163 

By Endurance 168 

All Our Efforts 173 

Into the Provinces for Victory 175 

Toward the End of the Scourge 180 

V. The First Winter Campaign — the Yser — the War 
in the Trenches. 

The Winter Campaign. ..;...• 183 

In the Military Dispatches'. ' 185 

For the Maintenance of Unity .- 192 

All of France 195 

Soldiers' Note Books 204 

The First Balance-Sheet 205 

The Answer of the French Universities 208 

A Comparison 210 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

The Opinion of the Trenches 218 

The Yellow Book ...,. 225 

Those at the Front ( 231 

Thoughts on the War 236 

The Supreme Resistance 237 

The Two Sides of the Shield 238 

Garibaldi! 239 

On the Arduous Path 244 

Destiny 247 

Our Men and Theirs 250 

Messieurs, Faites Votre Jeu! 253 

VI. The War of Endurance. 

A Testimonial 255 

Adieu, Brandes 260 

From beyond the Mountains 267 

As to Shirkers 269 

European Revolution 272 

They Are too Amusing 275 

At Any Price 277 

Without Hesitation 278 

They and We 282 

In Order to Win 286 

Hold Out! 288 

Patience Still 292 

Impossible 295 

Against the Theme of Passivity 300 

Time to Breathe ; 302 

The Only Question 305 

VII. A Visit to the Trenches — the Champagne Offensive. 

The*Smile of the Trenches 308 

In Memoriam 311 

At a Halting-place 317 

We're Not Through Yet 322 

The Languedoc Corridor 329 

Sergeant Poissonnier 335 

VIII. The Second Winter Campaign — the Loan. 

Officers and Men 344 

The War Loan 346 



vin CONTENTS 

CHAPTBB PAGE 

Chirping for Peace 354 

On a Tour of Inspection 356 

The Questions of the Hour 359 

The Women 362 

The Account 369 

IX. Verdun. 

The Cannon 374 

Verdun! 377 

Fifty Days Later 382 

We Must 389 



/ 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 



/ 



INTRODUCTION 



France facing Germany! My friends Louis 
Lumet and Jean Martet have brought together, 
under this title, a series of speeches and articles, 
sometimes condensed for the sake of avoiding 
digressions, upon the origin of the present war as 
well as upon the progress of hostilities. 

The reader will understand, I hope, the 
emotions and the ideas with which a patriotic 
Frenchman must needs he animated by the vicis- 
situdes of the deadly encounters in which law and 
justice, and the honor and the very life of the 
homeland are at stake. Is it not presumptuous to 
besiege the public, in these terrible days, with 
writings which were never meant to survive, and 
which arrested attention only by their straight- 
forward sincerity? But I have permitted myself 
to be persuaded that there may be matters still 
of interest in them, on account of the importance 
and the universality of the principles involved as 
well as of the results of the conflict. These 
thoughts have prevailed upon me to bring out in 
book form a series of disconnected opinions on the 
roles of France and Germany in this stupendous 
clash of human powers. Imperfections of coordi- 
nation, in such a work, cannot be avoided. The 
reader will, however, easily follow the thread of 

xi 



xii INTRODUCTION 

a general purpose in opinions which must funda- 
mentally agree for the good reason that all were 
written from a single point of view. 

France facing Germany! It would he useful to 
offer a searching study contrasting these two 
" moral' 9 forces with each other — assuming that 
such a term could, at this moment, be applied to 
Teutonism. But far from any searching study, I 
can only present to the reader, in these various 
pieces, certain expressions of combative passion 
which are and can be only unconnected partial 
judgments boasting no objectivity. 

It is obvious that my position on these issues is 
not a disinterested one, and I should be sorry 
indeed if anyone might think so. I understand 
that no one will expect from me the verdict of a 
judge, in his imposing ermine, or even the learned 
decision of a Doctor at The Hague. If simple- 
minded folk, too easily contented with appear- 
ances, should come to look beyond what is shown 
their eyes, they would quickly discover that the 
judge, in his high seat, does nothing but formulate 
the decrees of an elastic justice whose laws are 
made out of common human judgments rendered, 
in the accidents of circumstance, by those onlook- 
ers who derive their authority from the free 
exercise of an independent conscience. 

Let me be permitted to be one of those onlook- 
ers ; it is my title to a hearing. I have the temerity 
to find it sufficient, since no one, if we consider 
closely, can claim any other. I am a man, I think, 
and I speak. Let anyone who can, do likewise, 
and let the world decide. The sources of my in- 
formation are limited, and so are my powers of 



/ 

INTRODUCTION xiii 

understanding, my standards of value. I must 
content myself with them, because against the 
chance of a superior arbitrament I foresee only 
centuries of debate. 

What do we seek for here below! The best use 
of a fleeting existence. Where shall we find it, if 
not in a balance of forces, within us and around 
us, which presupposes an equilibrium of activity 
within us and without? A rule? — the limits of 
liberty fixed by those conventions called the law, 
which specify the prerogatives uniformly granted 
to each one. Beyond this are the fatal facts of 
man and of nature. Fortunate eventualities — 
man sacrifices himself for his equals ; unfortunate 
— he tries to sacrifice others, whenever he can, to 
his own advantage. 

All the efforts of righteousness and all the 
crimes of selfishness are spread out in a long 
series of benevolences on the one hand and of 
abuses on the other, from the simplest kindness to 
the noblest sacrifice, from the most specious rude- 
ness to the most brutal atrocity. 

In the social structure, for the maintenance of 
an appearance of order, there are forms of re- 
wards* and punishments fixed by the opinions of 
official arbiters more or less skilful. They do their 
work, or pretend to, by the sanction of force, 

*The idea of reward is certainly the most widespread and the 
most erroneous of all the principles that we have taken to guide 
us. For a faultless man there is no reward except the satisfaction 
of a disinterested ideal, and this is diminished by the ostentation 
of a symbol. The notion of punishment is no less erroneous. 
What gives us this right to punish? It suffices us, in the social 
realm, to have the right to preserve, which involves the right of 
putting the delinquent temporarily beyond the power to do harm, 
and even of attempting to reform him. 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

which Is the ultimate reason of things. In the 
vaster circle of the nations — since man remains 
the same from whatever point of view he is ex- 
amined, and since the domain of law is here much 
less precise — there spring up at times crises of 
brute force which up to our day the most lofty 
idealism has tried in vain to repress or even to 
regulate. 

It is what we call war, that is to say, bloody 
encounters in which peoples engage under various 
pretexts of which the underlying cause is usually 
the desire for aggrandizement at the expense of 
others. Ancient or modern, all wars are of the 
same nature, sprung from the same native desires, 
and they follow the same summary course of re- 
placing a gracious manner of life by a devastation 
of the land and a frightful prostration of hu- 
manity in the convulsions of death. For although 
man has claimed divine creation he has gone on 
destroying what he can of his fellow-creatures 
even up to this moment of his high development. 

Between the ignorant cannibal of primitive days 
and the ninety-three intellectuals of Wilhelm II 
there is only a difference of degree, in the desire 
to increase the fortunes of certain people at the 
expense of others. Supreme argument of the big 
beast against the little! Only, big or little, man 
is a kind of beast who, for good or evil, taxes his 
wits to increase his means of attack and defense. 
It is the philosophy of what is called civilization— 
a general evolution of all selfish desires or efforts 
at accommodation. I do not ask whither the fact 
is leading us, since at this very hour the question 
is in contest on the greatest battlefields where 



INTRODUCTION xv 

men have ever met — an astonishing paroxysm of 
human unrest, marking possibly a crisis out of 
which will come men disposed to a new order. 

Let us keep our eyes on the present moment in 
which we see ripening the fruits of the labor of 
the human mind during several thousand years. 
What impresses me most, in the heinous event of 
these days, is this: that, deceived by words, we 
have been, and probably are still, the chief dupes 
of a civilized verbalism which lets us live on a 
humanitarian phraseology in cruel disaccord with 
reality. 

Where should we place the time when war 
became different from peace, when man came to 
distinguish between the reign of violence and a 
state of security more or less durable, conditions 
which have been but vaguely separated? Peace, 
at first, was only a breathing-space between con- 
flicts, whereas it seems to us to-day that war is 
only an episode between periods of peace. It is 
intelligible that the theorist has thus been led to 
dream of a suppression of the use of force be- 
tween human societies, without pausing before the 
abyss that separates the man of words from the 
man of action. 

The man of words, it is true, sounds the word 
of law , that magic formula of an ideal equity of 
which nothing in the earth gives him a glimpse, 
but from which each one, for that very reason, 
may get inspiration, in the measure of his theo- 
logical needs, for his dream of the absolute. The 
man of action nourished a great pride of words, 
but no more knew how to use them than a child 
to wield an implement of toil beyond his strength. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

So the law took rank in the procession of our inac- 
cessible divinities. When Dr. Le Bon said that 
the law is only a force that endures, he cruelly dis- 
sected one of our last gods. Sacrilege, to analyze 
his divinity? The gods have passed, bearers of 
good and evil, according to what the more or less 
intelligent minds of the faithful can learn from 
their oracles. The greatest of them have marked 
off stages of history, splendid as long as the prin- 
ciples were spoken, dark when it came to their 
application. 

Up to now the religion of the law has had a his- 
tory nowise different. It has altars everywhere. 
Each one offers itself as a sanctuary, so pro- 
foundly convinced of the supremacy of its right 
as to be forgetful of the right of others. Heapings 
up of words, all this, rather than of realities. For 
centuries long, men everywhere have spent their 
treasures of verbalism to translate into massacres 
the aspirations of righteousness, for in their eyes 
there is no greater crime than to dispute their 
ideology. The wise Socrates affirmed his god with- 
out trying to give proof. None the less, in free 
Hellas, he paid for his presumption with his life. 
We know but too well what bloodshed the gospel 
of love brought upon us. 

Through many acts of free conscience brutally 
misunderstood, the noble blood of innumerable 
martyrs has given birth to a universal Law, su- 
perior to our beliefs, and even to our powers of 
reason ; that is to say, to an idea of humane equal- 
ity amid the natural inequality of individuals. 
This Law of the man of the future, is it other than 
the god of the modern gospel which M. Gustave 



\ 

INTRODUCTION xvii 

Le Bon only traces back to the single origin of all 
the divinities of earth when he identifies it with 
the permanent force of nature from which springs 
all subordination of creatures? No more than in 
other theologies have we been able in this new 
doctrine to determine the indeterminable, to put 
a finger on the intangible, to grasp and fix the fugi- 
tive. Whatever name men may have given to 
universal force, with whatever rites they may have 
veiled its deceptive image, they have not come into 
unison with it. For how can we reconcile the high 
conceptions of our minds with the wayward forms 
of things as they actually exist? God, or the "un- 
written law," as says the Antigone of Sophocles, 
manifests states of feeling which need a support 
just as the Greek mythology needed Atlas to sup- 
port "the world." Suspended in space, without 
visible prop, our planet is none the less carried 
on by a play of forces, balanced for the moment, 
which gives it the proud office of a day's task in 
the Infinite. So it is with us, products of contra- 
dictory forces, suspended between being and non- 
being by opposite powers of which we seek in 
vain the secret in words which procure us the illu- 
sion of a reason for existence. 

The Law is the last to come of those invisible 
gods, the one whose rule of universal equity does 
not stop for any theoretical distinction between 
various human groups. There is no Shibboleth 
for its sacred power; this is a great advantage. 
The reality is in our minds, as Abelard said. This 
really can suffice us, since it is opposed to force 
and tolerates it only in order to regulate it. 

Nevertheless there remains this human phe- 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

nomenon, that tlie rites of worship, as in the case 
of older divinities, too easily become more impor- 
tant than the acceptance of the constraints of doc- 
trine. How mnch easier it is to take part in 
ceremonies than to practise this simple text, 
"Love one another." In universal assent to this 
noble maxim the highest intelligences are at one 
with the spontaneous instinct of the obscure 
masses. But in the difficult transformation of the 
idea into action energies are consumed in mag- 
nificent verbal edifices which crumble at the slight- 
est contact with reality. The preachings of 
Christianity proclaimed a great peace for hu- 
manity. But man, unchanged in the depths of his 
nature, maintained war and hatred, made worse 
still by sectarian quarrels, and the French Revo- 
lution itself simultaneously erected the altar to 
liberty and the scaffold. Too far is the fall after 
an ascent too dizzy. The honor and the misery of 
man is that he cannot stay his climb into the 
heights. 

All the religions are beautiful considered as 
products of hopes more and more lofty in propor- 
tion as the progress of the mind enlarges the field 
of aspiration. A little association of believers, as 
formerly in Galilee, even though they seek to unite 
men, will end only in dividing them, while the cult 
of the haw, uniting all humanity without any 
distinction of faith or of thought, must appear, 
at first, as a supreme enlargement of our vision. 
The existence of hope implies short-comings. 
Nevertheless, out of the many successive hopes 
the incessant flood of which has swept the world, 
actual groups of better men have everywhere 



INTRODUCTION xix 

emerged. And from this come the most solid cer- 
tainties of our lives, the most noble of our 
extravagant idealisms, and the wisest, also, of the 
enterprises of our reason. 

To-day we know that there is no social formula 
for happiness ; we know that rules of justice, gen- 
eral or individual, however efficacious they may 
be, do no more than create for us more equitable 
conditions of struggle, which is none the less an 
estimable advantage. We know that universal 
peace has not yet appeared except in phrases, 
while without relief the bloody uproar of war is 
overwhelming humanity. We have seen temples 
built to the goddess Peace for ceremonies of ado- 
ration which would be innocent if error were not 
always concomitant with misconception of the real 
state of things. We have not the slightest word 
to say against the arbitration of the Law between 
nations. But we must believe that faith in this 
sovereign good is not immeasurable, since the civi- 
lizations under the Law, those most fervent at the 
oracle of The Hague, have not ceased their rivalry 
in the fabrication of the engines of war, for which 
we have ourselves, at this moment, an excellent 
enough employment. 

What has happened, then? Why, exactly what 
has always happened since man appeared on the 
earth; namely, under the regime of the Law ver- 
bally established, as under the rites of all the 
other cults, enterprises of violence have been pre- 
pared and organized and set afoot in renewal of 
the eternal history of fury. Where the Gospel had 
failed, the code which only recommends the Law 
under the threat of repressing the violation of it 



xx INTRODUCTION 

has never succeeded in establishing other than 
more or less accidental sanctions. In the absence 
of a code of nations, the sanction of which could 
not be other than armed constraint, there re- 
mains to each one — international law or not — only 
the prudent policy of self-preservation. It is the 
regime under which we have lived since the first 
two sons of Adam had misunderstandings. 

While, given up to the metaphysics of their 
theories, the internationalists of universal paci- 
fism were neglecting the elementary precaution of 
proportioning the powers of resistance to the 
powers of the eventual offensive, a people of 
Europe, " Christianized, ' ' ' f civilized, ' ' celebrated 
by some as one of the highest embodiments of 
idealism, fixed their purpose upon the dream of 
conquering, not only according to universal tra- 
dition, certain parcels of territory more or less 
extensive, but of mastering, with the land, all the 
means of independent life among peoples, near or 
far, with whom they could satisfy the madness of 
their ferocious egoism. It is a revival of mon- 
strous appetites that have been known since the 
world has had annals. Alexander, Caesar, Pyr- 
rhus, Napoleon had hours of this madness, but 
were promptly awakened to the resistance of 
nature and of peoples, whose principle is that of a 
compensation of forces under the rule of higher 
destinies, from which our Law is not excluded. 

In his modesty, Frederick II was content to be- 
lieve that everything was permitted to him. In 
the degeneracy of extravagant brutality Wilhelm 
II came naively to the point of saying that every- 
thing was commended to him, imposed on him, 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

even, by I know not what ancient German fetish 
of barbarism. In his madness he saw nothing but 
the yellow race to stop him and he could not re- 
strain himself from addressing to them certain 
abusive remarks on this subject. In regard to the 
white race itself, for which he could not help hav- 
ing some consideration, since it participated in 
advance in Teutonic nobility because of its antici- 
pated subjection, he could at least consent to make 
distinctions. The Latin would amuse him and the 
Slav would receive from him a feeling for organ- 
ization and instruction in it; the English could 
offer for German exploitation a fine set of ener- 
gies; the "ancient God" of Germany would, by 
way of Bagdad, cousin it with Mahomet and 
Buddha and Vishnu. Properly hammered by the 
famous mailed fist, the yellow man himself would 
end by submitting to his destiny. America, pos- 
sessing no army, could be gathered in on the way 
back. And so ' ' the times would be accomplished, ' ' 
since the insufficiency of means of communication 
does not yet permit the extension of the benefits 
of pan-Germanism beyond our sphere. 

The instrument of this universal conquest? It 
is the German people, penetrated with the spirit 
of voluntary servitude for the fantastic conquests 
of their masters, from which they will be allowed 
profits. 

The means? The restoration of the cult of 
brute force, concentrated and unified in a violent 
race, untrammeled by notions of human right. 
And therefore there was needed the revival of 
absolutism and slavery in efficacious coordination, 
with a resurrection of all instinctive brutality sus- 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

tained by all "civilized" poltroonery, for the in- 
stallation of the supreme rule of iron force over 
the fallen Law. 

And all this was said, avowed, proclaimed ; and 
it would all come about, if brute force could rule 
entirely over the destinies of men, by the impla- 
cable decree of the German victory arrogantly pre- 
dicted but not yet realized. 

So there burst out the greatest and most furious 
battle between men upon which the sun has ever 
risen. A whole people ignobly trained to under- 
stand nothing and to love nothing but the savage 
force of which they consented to remain the vic- 
tim for the joy of being the instrument of it 
against others, was let loose upon Europe like an 
irresistible army of machines of death prepared 
to shatter all before them. 

Let us do them the homage of saying that they 
played their role to perfection. Cities, with their 
finest historical monuments and their most 
precious treasures of science and art, have gone 
up in flames before the torch of destructive Kul- 
tur. Destruction of the humblest home as well as 
of the noblest edifices, pillage, robbery, assassina- 
tion, massed murder following nameless tortures 
of educated barbarism, the most execrable out- 
rages upon human beings, the most revolting 
shameless acts of beasts in delirium — such, in 
plain terms, is the record of these brutes in their 
work of " cultured" Teutonization. Have they 
not martyred and butchered women and children? 
Did they not mock with the retchings of their un- 
speakable banter the passengers of the Lusitania 
sinking under their piratical torpedo? In their 



L INTRODUCTION xxiii 

record will be lacking no disgrace or degrada- 
tion. 

How should they understand when we reproach 
them for having violated the neutrality of Bel- 
gium and of Luxembourg, when we try to explain 
to them that without respect for treaties, without 
the observance of sworn faith, there is no longer 
any law and justice between the nations, nor any 
honor among men? They could find but one an- 
swer : ' ' We were the strongest. ' ' Brutes that they 
are, they know not even that brute force itself is 
subject to reaction, as we are in the act of show- 
ing them. 

What other argument can bring conviction to 
them except the argument of force? We must 
needs accept this contradiction of our principles 
for it is the only means of gaining access to their 
"intelligence," which still puts its faith in the 
primitive reign of unbridled force — a faith which 
can only be excused in the savage. To the savage 
supremacy of the club we must oppose the armed 
forces of law and order. 

Geography and history have assigned the role 
of this opposing force to France, on whose land 
the meeting and mingling of races halted by the 
sea have brought the robust empiricism of the 
North and the impulsive idealism of the South. Be- 
tween the boundaries of Alps and Ehine and Ocean 
lies a great flowery basin where has come about 
a fusion of humanity out of which has arisen a 
people of clear minds. An august history made 
of this people in older times "the soldier of God," 
and later "the champion of the rights of man" 
— which the barbarism still surviving has not yet 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

forgiven. Everything designated this people to 
meet the first blows of the organizations of vio- 
lence devoted to the destruction of humanitarian 
right seeking the ways of progress. 

Only, from that time on, great allies came to 
this people — allies pacified, after so many fratri- 
cidal wars, by a high community of interests 
among which is dominant the necessity of honor- 
able independence. Thus France facing Germany 
summarizes a rising of humanity so great that 
from now on the formula expresses the revolt of 
Europe, of the civilized world — of Europe, mother 
of all the great advance in civilization, who has 
risen against the full forces of savagery made 
into science. It is the greatest battle of mankind, 
greatest in the number of combatants, in the 
ghastly power of their arms, in the diabolism of 
the atrocities and devastations which delight a 
barbarous Kultur proclaiming scorn for the rights 
of individuals and of peoples, — greatest, finally, 
in the stake at play, which is the exaltation or the 
degradation of the human species. Is not this 
what the words epitomize, France facing Ger- 
many? Do they not signify the two historical 
poles, the encounter of two nations representing 
the good and the evil? 

The bloody tragedy has followed its course. At 
a time when our fathers believed that they had 
dearly gained the happy privilege of hoping that 
a general enough acceptance of the common rights 
of all would assure henceforth the evolution of 
peoples in independence, Germany decided that in 
one mad game she would play, not only against 
us, but against all the peoples of the earth, the 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

chances of the non-right pure and simple. With 
a success due to the technical excellence of her 
preparations, she has burned, ravaged, pillaged, 
and destroyed all the homes of civilization that 
fortune has offered to her devastating genius. She 
has bestially violated and tortured and murdered 
creatures who were weak without ever finding 
satiation for her fury. She has proved false to 
the written text of her faith, torn up the pact of 
honor to which she had put her signature, in the 
thought that the force of steel was to excuse all, 
and terrorized the neutrals so far as to impose 
on them sometimes a silence for which later they 
may blush. 

And for a supreme mockery, the men of 
" science' ' — it is the name they give themselves — 
having conquered, by their labor, an authoritative 
prestige, create for us a philosophical doctrine, 
fitted to the use of the higher banditry, to explain 
to us that, in the necessary order of things, bestial 
brutality is only the manifestation of a higher 
harmony. They proclaim, in the forms of logic, 
that by the virtue of the streaming sword-blade 
the law of man must now go and sleep in the tomb 
of antiquities. For a kind of German pity moves 
them to show themselves pitiless in order to 
abridge the sufferings of the man whose death 
they have decreed in their purpose of abolishing, 
without delay, the attachment of minds to that law 
and justice for which so many fools have thought 
it glory to live and die. 

All this stands written, and registered in acts 
which no one can undo, and, for a supreme burst 
of humanitarian carnage, Germany has found the 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

continuous strength which has permitted her to 
conduct, after half a century of preparation, the 
greatest of enterprises for human debasement 
under cover of a supremacy of "intellectuality." 
The old despotisms of Asia had at least the excuse 
that they were the beginnings of civilization. This 
despotism aspires to put an end to the painful 
work of the slow emancipation of the mind by a 
regression to the bestialities of ferocious sav- 
agery. 

Man would have risen out of unthinking matter 
only to experience the revolting sensation of an 
effort at nobility rewarded by a debasement new 
in the scale of degradations. So many centuries 
of unremembered wretchedness and of glorious 
sufferings would have passed in the uncertain 
hope of higher things, only for men to see them- 
selves cast back, at one blow, into bottomless gulfs. 
The insolent command is addressed to us to re- 
ceive, to solicit, as a benefaction, the stigma of a 
supreme subjection for ourselves and for those 
who will come after us. Give up all aspiration 
for glory, for grandeur, for hope? We have not 
consented : either the German must therefore bow 
his head, or we must. Ours was not made for the 
yoke. 

If there were nothing more here than a collec- 
tion of expressions of anger against a people with 
whom France is at war, there would perhaps be 
too little to tempt the reader, even in the worst 
of our sufferings. But although the vehemence of 
my passion as a Frenchman need make no excuse 
for itself perhaps the reader will be good enough 
to recognize that while I have remained a patriot 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

I have endeavored to adopt the point of view of 
a citizen of humanity. I am, and whatever comes, 
I shall remain a humanitarian, because I am a 
Frenchman — as the German, whatever he may say, 
will still be joined for a long time yet to the wor- 
ship of primitive force, the only religion for which 
his base ambition has yet prepared him. 

It is from the French point of view that I judge 
Germany. It is from my human conscience that 
her condemnation comes, for according to the say- 
ing of Pascal, whoever would put himself " above 
all" puts himself below all. For who would claim 
the privilege of establishing among the peoples a 
hierarchy based on other foundations than those 
of service rendered to the whole human family? 
Our France holds an enviable position in this com- 
petition. What savage, arrogating to himself a 
primacy over the nations, will be willing or able 
to eliminate her, to strike her from the list of 
peoples, that is to say, from the history of the 
future, on account of lack of achievement in her 
history of the past? 

It would be interesting to hear the worthy de- 
scendant of the ancient Elector of Brandenburg — 
who did not count, to my knowledge, among the 
lights of his time — undertake to broach this ques- 
tion at Eome, at London, at Petrograd, or at 
Paris. Would the present Germany allege that 
the coming of Bismarck has transformed her? 
Was not the wrong-minded "transformer," on the 
contrary, in legitimate descent from Frederick II, 
with a less adaptable mind? We shall certainly 
not be found to be of this lineage. Different roles 
suit different minds. We have no need of sup- 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

pressing any people on the globe. It suffices us 
to mark out and preserve our own place, to save 
ourselves from suppression. This is all the right 
that we claim, but this we want wholly, in the ful- 
ness of national independence, in the complete pos- 
session of liberties that constitute national honor. 

For half a century I have seen the menace of 
a bloodthirsty people rising against us. I have 
uttered warnings without number against it to the 
unseeing men who, up to the last hour, refused 
to recognize the truth, and who, by the authority 
which their lack of foresight gained for them, now 
refuse me the right to point out the continuation 
of the faults of yesterday in the faults of to-day. 
And when the bloodthirsty people started the 
actual slaughter and the violation of all human 
rights, I pursued my task, I kept speaking, I kept 
crying out. The cry of the victim is the first evi- 
dence of the crime — it is the indictment and con- 
demnation of the man still red with the blood he 
has spilled. 

They are attempting a death-blow against all 
that I treasure in life, against my attachment to 
the soil and my love and ideals for my country 
— a death-blow to my worship of the glory of a 
nation manifesting, in the dignity of fraternal 
living, a legitimate pride in being a people of many 
minds welded into unison. 

They are attempting a death-blow against my 
right to existence, against the virtue of the blood 
in my race, against my irrepressible need to ad- 
vance, through the course of the ages, following 
the traditions and the principles of a history in 
which, through my fathers, I have had a part — a 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

history which is not the least noble portion, per- 
haps, of the deeds of the human race. 

They are attempting a death-blow — in the most 
radiant of the hopes that guide men through the 
perilous mazes of a destiny the riddle of which 
is possibly in the fact that it is only what it is — 
but which is the more precious to me, nevertheless, 
on account of my attempts to honor it. 

They are attempting to deal a death-blow. And 
I defend myself, to the displeasure of certain so- 
called neutrals who are descanting on the most 
decorous manner of agreeing to my destruction. 

France defends herself, and others do so with 
her — all those who have been the guides and sup- 
porters of mankind, the leaders of thought, all 
those who, because they are worthy to live the 
highest life, cannot die a death which, together 
with the early downfall of the neutrals, would 
mean the extinction of civilized man. 

G. Clemenceau. 



ALSACE-LOERAINE— MOEOCCO— PEACE 
WITH GEEMANY 

Speech Delivered at the Dedication of the 
Monument to Scheurer-Kestner 

Scheurer-Kestner took part in all the strug- 
gles against the imperial regime. In fighting for 
the Eepublic he was manifestly fighting for the 
nation itself, for France might have been spared 
the disaster of Sedan if the rule of absolutism 
had succumbed beforehand. 

It was a time of fresh enthusiasms. In our 
hearts arose the radiant hope of the great days 
that were to be reborn through our efforts. 
Through our efforts France, once more become the 
home of the rights of man, was to recover, amid 
the applause of friendly peoples, the moral 
grandeur of her former days. 

To the trustful prayers of this beautiful dream 
the answer was war; war and crushing defeat, war 
and dismemberment. 

From the day of Sedan on, Scheurer-Kestner 
was at the side of Gambetta, and until the fall of 
Paris he devoted all his powers to the develop- 
ment of the manufacture of munitions. 

When the armistice was concluded, Alsace, as 
a supreme manifestation of her French spirit, 



2 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

chose Scheurer-Kestner as one of her representa- 
tives in the National Assembly. I saw him again 
at Bordeaux when the frightful honr of the 
great dismemberment was striking. An Alsatian 
Frenchman, he clung with every fiber of his being 
to that cherished soil where, with changing for- 
tunes, the tides from the east and the west meet 
in struggle. With a peculiar poignancy of sor- 
row, therefore, he felt the bitter agony of the 
mutilation. He could not sever himself from 
France. 

Some months later I saw him again at Thann, 
sad of heart but quietly stoical and confident for 
the future. We called up the memory of the 
peaceful life of AJsace in other days, when, in the 
evening, I used to accompany the family, in the 
silence of the snow, to the rehearsals of the choral 
societies, in this country where the art of song is 
traditional. At such times workers and em- 
ployers, gathered in friendly intercourse, used to 
express their common feeling in the art, and to 
mingle emotion and thought in the love of their 
common country. 

Other times had come. With Scheurer-Kestner 
I made the pilgrimage of Belfort, of Strassburg, 
ravaged by the tempest of steel and fire. A prey 
to what emotions? Ask your own hearts. 

And yet, upon these smoking ruins, Scheurer- 
Kestner gave full voice to his unconquerable hope 
for the future. He foresaw that France- would 
find herself again, would multiply her powers in 
an industrious peace, in patient work from day 
to day, would steadily bend herself to the repara- 
tion of evils, of all evils, by the organization and 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 3 

the development of a democracy of justice and 
of fraternity. 

. . . Gentlemen, I have not been afraid to call 
up the memory of the bleeding past. Though 
mindful of the responsibility which attaches to 
my office,* I have allowed myself to speak with- 
out constraint upon events which have entered 
into history and to proclaim feelings which we 
could not repudiate, nor even dissemble, without 
degrading ourselves. What sort of men should 
we be if, while we are doing homage to a noble 
Alsatian, who was an honor to France, we were 
capable of forgetting the story of Alsace? No 
one has the right to demand that we do this. 

Of course it has been said that silence, in such 
a case, remains the best safeguard of a timorous 
dignity. But it seems to me rather that our dig- 
nity would be really impaired only if we should 
seem to keep silence by our own will, when we 
can, without fear of malicious interpretation, give 
free voice to the feelings which this day suggests 
to us. 

Every people has experienced, turn by turn, the 
pride of victory and the humiliation of defeat, 
and it is perhaps in misfortune, rather than in 
triumph, that the best in our nation has been 
brought to life through the union and the fusion 
of minds. The danger of victory lies in the 
temptation to go wrong; it is in resistance to the 
blows of fortune that courage is tempered, that 
the energies of life are united. It is for every 
individual to preserve himself in the fulness of 

*M. Clemeneeau, at the time of this speech, was Premier and 
Minister of the Interior. 



4 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Ms powers for the great struggle for moral pre- 
eminence in which the strong and the weak of a 
day will find ample work for the development of 
their highest faculties. 

To this noble contest, for which the first con- 
dition is peace, we bring the good will of a people 
and a government eager to carry to success an 
arduous undertaking: the establishment of an 
organized democracy. For this colossal task, 
which requires the most difficult concentration of 
ordered forces, all have the same need of peace. 
And the democratic powers, because they are at 
the most difficult part of their labor, are neces- 
sarily less inclined than any others to risk ad- 
ventures out of which war might arise. 

It is agreed that the French policy is free from 
threats and provocations; because it is founded 
on the firm basis of a just reciprocity. As we ask 
respect for treaties in which we are concerned, 
so we expect to give an example ourselves by 
faithfully observing the obligations to which we 
are engaged. 

We inherited France at the moment when she 
emerged from a dreadful trial. In order to re- 
store her to her rightful powers of expansion, 
to her dignity of high moral eminence, we need 
indulge no hatred nor deception; not even any 
recrimination. Our eyes are upon the future. 
Heirs of a glorious history, jealous of the splendid 
native passions out of which grew the cultural 
power of our country, we can look peacefully upon 
the descendants of the strong races which for 
centuries have measured themselves against the 
men of our land, on fields of battle too numerous 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 5 

to recount. Two great rival peoples, for the very- 
honor of their rivalry, have the same interest in 
maintaining respect each for the other. 

What an impairment of our own self-respect, as 
well as of the esteem of other peoples, if we dared 
not give free voice to the sentiments that surge 
up in our hearts when, before this monument, 
we come face to face with the memories of a 
glorious history of two hundred years in which 
our fathers wrote the immortal epic of the French 
Revolution! Two hundred years of fraternal 
spirit, down to this latest moment of civilization, 
have converted our manners, our emotions, our 
ideas, and all else that makes for a firmer union 
of mankind, into a structure different from that 
of a day when the modern spirit was hardly yet 
struggling to he born. We have received. We 
have given. Common was the joy and the grief, 
common the glories and the agonies, out of which 
the magnificent movement of modern civilization 
arose. 

The heroic effort of the great liberation of man, 
in which the genius of the French distinguished 
itself so signally, and the epic tournament of arms, 
which eventuated from it, wrought magnificently 
in enthusiasm and in blood upon all the passionate 
spirits of our country. 

In every field of patriotic activity Alsace and 
Lorraine had conquered an eminent position; in 
war especially, for at all times the men of the 
border provinces have been quick in combat. 
Alsace gave birth even to sailors, as is still at- 
tested by the statue of Admiral Bruat in the 
public square at Colmar. Metz gave us Fabert, 



6 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

great soldier and great citizen. Under the marble 
of Pigalle, Strassburg has preserved the victor of 
Fontenoy, the most remarkable example of spon- 
taneous French naturalization. 

But it remained for the wars of the Eepublic 
and of the Empire, in which modern France ex- 
hibited herself in an incomparable series of deeds 
of arms, to offer us a rare flowering of warriors 
from Alsace and Lorraine. Many of them were 
of the highest rank; their names are written on 
the Arch of Triumph. Forty generals, and a 
whole people in the field of arms ! 

Grands cosurs, qui, de leur sang, nous ont fait 
la patrie ! Could I only call the roll of them all ! 

Kellermann, of Strassburg, at his death desires 
that his heart may be placed beneath the obelisk 
of Valmy, with this inscription: Here lie the 
brave dead ivho saved France on September 
20, 1792. 

Westermann, of Molsheim, arraigned with 
Danton before the revolutionary tribunal, cries: 
At least wait, before you send me to the scaffold, 
until my seven wounds, all received in front, have 
closed! 

Ihler, of Thann, excites the wonder of his com- 
manders in the attack upon the lines at Wissem- 
bourg; glorious ancestor of the young captain 
recently fallen before the enemy, under the 
French flag. 

Bouchotte, of Metz, minister of war, powerfully 
aids the Committee of Public Safety in the organ- 
ization of the armies. 

Lefebvre, of Rouffach, decides the victory of 
Fleurus. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 7 

Kleber, like an ancient hero, sleeps at Strass- 
burg on the Place d'Armes, with the order of 
supreme bravery which was to force the victory. 

The son of Kellermann, of Metz, distinguishes 
himself by the charge at Marengo. 

Lasalle, of Metz, falls at Wagram, at the age of 
thirty-four, full of glory. 

Eble, of Rohrbach, saves the army crossing the 
Berezina. 

And Ney, finally, Ney of Sarrelouis, given to 
France in 1814 by the fixing of the new frontier, 
finds himself thrown back into Germany by the 
treaties of 1815. And thus when he is brought 
before the Chamber of Peers, his defender, Dupin, 
can plead, without consulting him, that the 
change in nationality removes him from the juris- 
diction of the High Court. But the hero of the 
Moskowa, trembling with emotion, rises and cries 
out : No, gentlemen, I am French! I demand to die 
as a Frenchman! From this spot we can see his 
statue, a sister of the one that Metz has pre- 
served. 

And with these, let Scheurer-Kestner enjoy the 
glory that is due him! He did not fall upon the 
field of battle in one of those bursts of heroism 
which, through the full sacrifice of self to a pre- 
cious heritage of principle, will remain the honor 
of a glorious few. A hero in civic courage, it was 
without the excitement of murderous combat, but 
in the painful silence of friendships that weaken 
and of enmities that grow stronger, that without 
bitterness, without complaint, he gave his life day 
by day for the right, for justice, for the good name 
of France. 



8 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

The French Bevolution had graven upon stone 
the recognition by the country of its good ser- 
vants. Our Eepublic has resumed the splendid 
tradition. On the walls of the Pantheon, among 
so many glorious names of Alsace and Lorraine, 
we inscribe, in proud gratitude, the name of 
Scheurer-Kestner. 

February 11, 1908. 



Speech Delivered in the Senate on the Franco- 
German Agreement of November 14, 1911, 
Eelative to Morocco 

. . . What is the question before us 1 For me 
it is a question whether the treaty of November 
14th is an instrument of peace, and an instrument 
of lasting peace. If so, I am inclined to forbear 
certain criticisms. If I am offered proof that in 
spite of very vexing negotiations, its clauses as- 
sure us of normal relations, endurable and per- 
manent, between the French and German nations, 
perhaps I shall be able to make the concessions 
that you request. 

Only, gentlemen, there is one thing that no one 
mentions but which is at the very heart of the 
debate. This treaty, which we are told is a matter 
of business, is no matter of business between two 
traffickers trying to rob each other and to keep 
a profit more or less honestly acquired. No, the 
two contracting parties are two peoples, two gov- 
ernments, two nations; they have behind them a 
long history, moving them, exhorting them, guid- 
ing them in paths determined by historical neces- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 9 

sity, and forcing them, by virtue of the character 
that history has given them, to pursue a fixed 
purpose. {Hear! Hear!) 

That is a truth that we must keep in mind. 

The Minister of War said recently, when he was 
only a Deputy, "The treaty will be what we make 
it." I beg permission to say to him, as the 
Premier has said already, that two parties are 
needed for that purpose. 

We shall devote all our efforts, I am sure, to 
giving new proofs of our good will — we have 
already given not a few of them in forty years — 
in order that the results of the treaty may be 
attained in ways compatible with the honor of 
the two peoples; but we must understand the 
position of the other party to it, we must know 
what are his intentions, what he is thinking and 
saying, what he purposes to do, and what evi- 
dences of good will he has offered. That is the 
question which we must have the courage to ask. 

I broach this question, gentlemen, and I do it 
at my own risk, and moreover without being 
troubled by what I am about to say, because there 
is no ill feeling in my heart, no hatred, to use 
the exact word, toward the German people. I 
would avoid the slightest provocation; for just 
as I am firmly resolved to do nothing that might 
injure, however slightly, our chances in case we 
should be attacked, I am also convinced that peace 
is not only desirable, but is essential, to the 
furtherance of our plans for cultural progress. 
{Hear! Hear!) 

The German people, in 1866 and in 1870, won 
two great victories which disturbed the stability 



10 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

of Europe, or rather, to use the correct word, its 
instability. 

I can hardly say whether, throughout the 
Napoleonic drama, we were very gracious con- 
querors. We have the Latin manner, we like 
display and the flourishes of glory, but at heart 
we are not bad fellows; there is proof enough 
of it in the way our soldiers were received in 
the capitals of Europe which they traversed. 
{Hear! Hear!) 

In this regard I recall a sentence of Bismarck's, 
which is unpublished and unknown, but which I 
had from the lips of Jules Favre on an anxious 
day when he had returned from Versailles, where 
he had been negotiating with Bismarck concern- 
ing the surrender of Paris. 

We were conquered, and we had evidence that 
if the enemy claimed the right to occupy Paris, 
the capital of France would be reduced to ashes ; 
and I am sure that Jules Favre stated the situa- 
tion to the conqueror in irreproachable words. 
But Bismarck replied: i6 ~Nol Our troops must 
invade at least one gate, because I am not willing, 
once I am back at home in my own country, to 
risk a meeting with some man who has lost an 
arm or a leg, and who can tell his comrades, as 
he points at me: 'You see that man? That is 
the man that kept us out of Paris.' " 

And when Jules Favre answered that the 
German army had already won enough -glory, 
Bismarck replied: " Glory! That word is not 
impressive in our country." (Confused manifes- 
tations.) 

I have often thought about that remark. Cer- 



FKANCE FACING GERMANY 11 

tainly the language of glory is not the same in 
the two countries. 

The German, so far as I can judge, is above 
all enamored of force, and he rarely neglects an 
opportunity to say so; but where he differs from 
the Latin, is in the fact that his first thought is 
to employ that force. As the great economic de- 
velopment of the empire is a continuous tempta- 
tion in this respect, he is unsatisfied, — the Post 
repeated the fact some days ago, in regard to 
Morocco, — he is unsatisfied unless the French 
perceive that behind every German merchant 
there is an army of five million men. 

That is the heart of the matter; but that is not 
all. Germany took from us (to use no stronger 
word) an indemnity of five billions, and in so 
doing robbed us of vital energy. It is the modern 
form of ancient slavery. In older days warriors 
took possession of men, to make them work and 
to enjoy the fruit of their toil. Now the method 
is changed; the victors force the vanquished to 
pay them perpetual tribute. 

That is what was done. We are free, we are 
left in our country, we can work, but each year 
we are losing the interest of the sum we paid. 

The memory of those live billions, of the rapid- 
ity with which we recovered our strength and 
renewed our wealth, has made a strong impres- 
sion, it seems to me, upon the German mind. I 
am forced to believe that this is the case; for in 
their newspapers I am constantly reading that 
they are coming after us and that they will exact 
an enormous indemnity with which they will re- 
build the fleet which the English will destroy 



12 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

in the course of the war. If our time were not 
so valuable, gentlemen, I could read you news- 
paper articles in quantity, every one of them, 
down to this very day, proclaiming that France 
shall pay with her billions the expenses of con- 
structing a new German fleet. That is Germany's 
state of mind, that is the truth that appears so 
clearly in your treaty. Germany is already think- 
ing of using her glory and her might. 

But this is not all. Germany gained her unity 
by force, by blood and iron. She desired this 
unity so much — and certainly there is no desire 
more natural — that she intends to make use of it. 
She wants to scatter through the world an enor- 
mous surplus of population. She therefore finds 
herself led, by a destiny which it is impossible 
for her to escape, to bring to bear upon her 
neighbors such pressure as to make them grant 
her, at the very least, the economic favors that 
she needs. 

There has been established during the course of 
the centuries, as a result of the invasions from 
the east, an ebb and flow of conflicts on the banks 
of the Ehine, and it is to the highest interest of 
civilization that these conflicts cease, that a wise 
settlement, which should be hailed with joy by 
all civilized nations, should put an end to these 
alterations of peace and massacre, resulting from 
the victory of the one side or the other. 

But this will not be possible until there shall 
appear a conqueror superior to his conquest, a 
victor who will be a hero in moderation. Napo- 
leon was not such a conqueror; no more so is 
Germany. We are still reminded of the dialogue 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 13 

of Pyrrlms and Cineas. Pyrrhus wants to fare 
forth to conquest, and since he is going to Borne, 
Cineas contrives to notify him that from Eome 
he will proceed to Sicily, from Sicily to Egypt, 
from Egypt to India. There is always more land 
in front of an owner who is trying to swell his 
holdings. There are always more peoples before 
the warrior whose aim is to conquer his fellow- 
men. {Hear! Hear!) 

I think I have spoken of the Germans with 
discretion, with the respect to which their cul- 
ture, their organization, their discipline, and their 
learning entitle them ; and if I had faults in mind 
to counterbalance the virtues just mentioned, I 
should not speak of them. I am not here to 
censure the German people ; I wish only to exhibit 
their present state of feeling toward us. I know 
that there is a party of social democracy among 
them, very different from our revolutionary so- 
cialism, which is for peace, and of that I shall 
speak in a moment. But at the same time there is 
in Germany a governmental organization and a 
public opinion of active minorities which do not 
permit the pacifists — I say it regretfully before 
my honorable friend, M. d'Estournelles de Con- 
stant — to make their will prevail. 

M. Le Bon has said that "The law is a force 
which endures." Very well, in order that the 
force may endure, in order that the abuse of 
force shall not lead to the destruction of force 
itself, we must have, I repeat, a conqueror su- 
perior to his conquest. That conqueror has not 
appeared. 

And now as to ourselves, the French people 1 



14 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

The French people is a people of idealism, 
critical in spirit, restive under discipline, given 
to wars and revolutions. (Confused manifesta- 
tions.) 

Its character is ill fitted for continuous action. 
Indeed, the French people has flights of en- 
thusiasm that are magnificent, but, as the poet 
says, it is sometimes necessary to measure the 
height of its flight by the depth of its fall. 

We were at the darkest hour of one of those 
intervals of somnolence, of torpor, when we were 
assailed, struck down, and crushed. And what 
surprised me most at the moment of that terrible 
defeat was not that our soldiers had been van- 
quished, because they found united against them 
all the fatal errors that long carelessness had 
allowed to mount up in the silence of the nation; 
what impressed me most profoundly, at Bordeaux 
especially, was the breaking of all political and 
social ties that resulted when the master had dis- 
appeared. There was a swarm of Frenchmen, but 
there was no longer a France. Or at least, we 
were searching for her, searching for something 
that might represent her, something that would 
bring her, alive and active, before our eyes. We 
could not find her. Oh! Indeed I can say that 
we could not find her, when we were dissentious 
to such a degree that there were men who, all the 
time that they were battling heroically against 
the enemy, were crying and clamoring, on every 
occasion, for peace. The people had chosen for 
themselves the rulers that they had found. One 
of them has a seat in this circle; I regret that I 
do not see him in his chair. (Manifestations,) 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY IS 

France has gratefully preserved the memory of 
them, and to the end of time she will give them 
the homage they deserve. (Applause.) 

. . . Think, gentlemen, of all the accumulated 
misfortunes of that day. Let your minds go back 
to the time: The foreign war, the invasion, and 
the Assembly, formed to make peace, which would 
impose monarchy on the Republic; the revolts of 
the Commune, Paris in flames, a reaction under 
way in the heart of the Assembly directing the 
Republic which meant to destroy the Republic, 
struggles following one another without end. 
Every social force was powerless; one force alone 
remained intact, the Catholic Church, with a 
power which arose from tradition, if I may say 
it, rather than from lively faith, and which had 
lost, in political struggles, the better part of its 
influence. That was all; men in disaccord, going 
their own ways, living in anarchy, asking them- 
selves how this country could emerge from such 
a crisis. 

And out of all that comes the party for the 
Republic, gaining the confidence of the country, 
molding a public mind now reasserting itself and 
endeavoring, from this moment, not only to repair 
the military forces of France but to recreate 
France herself, from the beginning, in her spirit, 
for her future. 

There is a difference between the two regimes. 
A regime centralized, strong to all appearances, 
which stifles every criticism, which seals the lips 
of every man; the master falls and nothing re- 



16 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

mains, as I said a moment ago, but a swarm of 
citizens. 

It was no such edifice as this that the party for 
the Kepuhlic wished to rebuild. The building had 
to be undertaken from the foundation, from the 
one foundation that is unshakable, namely, the 
heart of every citizen. It was needful to make 
French citizens in whose hearts and minds would 
develop and prosper the France of the future. 

Naturally, in the building of new institutions, 
the military and administrative powers were to 
be reconstituted; but the thing that needed to be 
done first was to correct what had been the cause 
of our weakness, to make it the cause of our great 
strength for the future; in one word, to make 
citizens. We had men, but we had no citizens, 
and it was necessary to create them. It was nec- 
essary to destroy that habit of the French mind, 
cause of all our sorrows, that habit of frenzy, 
of ecstasy in certain moments followed by torpor 
or heedlessness in the next. No, it was not 
necessary that the confidence granted to the re- 
publican government be the same as that given 
to the Empire; it was not enough to change the 
government, it was indispensable that this gov- 
ernment be capable of governing itself. (Ap- 
plause on the left.) 

This left us a difficult problem. We are still 
struggling with the great work ; we hope to carry 
it to success. The recent events of which some- 
one spoke a while ago, the intervention of public 
opinion in personal affairs, discussed calmly, 
serenely, without a word of braggardism, all this 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 17 

is one of the best tokens that France has yet ex- 
hibited. {Hear! Rear!) 

The work that we have done mast not be judged 
by what is visible, but by the ideas and the senti- 
ment that we have implanted in the hearts of 
all French citizens. {Applause on the left.) 

Since the French Revolution democracy has 
found its way around the world. There is now 
a parliament in China, in Turkey; the German 
people have gained universal suffrage and a 
Reichstag on the battlefields of France. 

It is none the less true that their government 
is one of a kind that we lack. The government 
is powerful and has the advantage of immediate 
action. And if it were force and victory, if it 
were sword and steel and the mailed fist, to use 
the word they love so much in the cafes beyond 
the Rhine, which were destined to assure the 
future of humanity, that government would have 
every chance. 

But it is not such things. Our work is not 
spectacular, it does not care for show, it is 
gradual. But when we look back over the events 
that I have just been recounting, over the progress 
of forty years, we see nevertheless that we have 
availed for something, that indeed a great work 
has been accomplished. 

But what is finest is not visible. What is finest 
is this new generation of ours, fervent in every 
work of disinterested thought, this youth in 
whose hearts are budding the hopes the realiza- 
tion of which I shall not see — though I shall die 
with the feeling that I had a modest share in 



18 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

them (Applause) — this youth on which we have 
staked our hopes, who will be like us, who will 
be misled. . . . We have done good things, fine, 
useful things, and we have been misled a hundred 
times, the public mind has been misled, and at a 
certain moment, wanted to return to the vomit 
of Csesarism. We have committed faults. Our 
ministries, our parliaments have often been want- 
ing in character, in will. Our people, good and 
loyal, too often believe that violence could give 
them the victory to which they aspire. 

Yes, we have been misled, and possibly we shall 
be misled again. But in spite of all, we have 
undertaken to build a new France upon a new 
foundation, a France who is already restored to 
her economic power. I wish to give due credit 
to the policy of expansion which has gained so 
much honor in the world and which has ad- 
vanced her flag amid the applause of peoples. 

But on the actual field of battle, with the choice 
of the hour left to the enemy, if that enemy were 
the German government, perhaps we should not 
have the advantage. 

We must acknowledge that this situation is 
capable of disturbing certain people. Neverthe- 
less, if the public spirit has been remolded, if the 
feeling of moral unity, so lacking to us under the 
Empire, has restored our confidence in ourselves, 
if we have become convinced that we have within 
us, in the traditions of our history and in our 
energetic wills, a force which craves to develop 
normally and righteously, which craves to trample 
on the rights of no one, but which also defends 
its own rights, I say that we have taken a great 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 19 

step forward and that we have sowed the seed 
of the future. 

I have had two peculiar proofs of it. Some 
days ago the editor of a great English newspaper 
wrote to ask me for an article on "The New 
France." I asked him what he meant by "The 
New France"; and in order that I might fully 
understand, he wrote: "The new France is the 
France that has just been manifesting that calm 
strength of mind which up to now we have con- 
sidered as the golden virtue of the Anglo-Saxon 
race." 

In his mind no higher praise could be con- 
ceived. I accepted this praise for my country. 
Yet I consider that we have, no less surely, pre- 
served our daring; we see examples of it every 
day, offered by those young men who fall in the 
distressing accidents of aviation of which you 
have heard, and by the tens and twenties who 
present themselves to take up the work and to 
return into the heavens where they may flash the 
fire of French daring. (Applause.) 

But if we may add to this the power of self- 
control, the mastery of our nerves, the virtue of 
repose, of cool and serene will, then we have our 
reward, our real reward, that over which no vic- 
tory is possible, that of a man reconstituted, a 
man of energy, of strong will, who knows his 
duty and his right path, who is capable of self- 
discipline and of submission to a law freely ac- 
cepted, who is ready to give himself as a sacrifice 
to his country. It is easy to speak ill of one's 
country; miserable speechmakers who do not 
understand the words that they pronounce can 



20 FRANCE PACING GERMANY 

slander the mother, the real mother, her for whom 
they have a right to demand the respect of 
everyone, but if the day comes when we must 
march to war, these men without a country will 
come to beg a rifle of us. (Applause.) 

. . . Gentlemen, it must be evident that the 
French people have never shown a less aggressive 
mood than to-day. Why? Because they under- 
stand that in order to develop their principles, in 
order to live their full life, they have only to 
invoke the right of all peoples so to live. Yes, 
but it is just this right of all peoples so to live 
their life which has been denied to us by Germany 
since the day of our defeat. 

You are well acquainted with the affair of 1875, 
you know full well that because we had permitted 
ourselves the right to create fourth battalions, we 
were on the point of being invaded anew. You 
will find the full story in the memoirs of M. de 
Gontaut-Biron and in the correspondence of Bis- 
marck. It is true that once the blow had mis- 
carried, on account of the intervention of Queen 
Victoria and of the Emperor Alexander II, the 
affair was denied. Such things are always 
denied ! But we have the proofs. It has been es- 
tablished that General von Moltke had spoken, and 
you will find, in the memoirs of M. de Gontaut- 
Biron, a very strange and very critical conversa- 
tion between our ambassador and Herr von Rado- 
witz, who has just died. Allow me to quote a few 
lines from it. It is Herr von Radowitz who 
speaks : 

"Can you give assurances that France, having 
regained her former prosperity, and having reor- 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 21 

ganized her military forces, will not find the 
alliances which she lacks to-day, and that the 
resentment which she cannot help nursing on ac- 
count of the loss of her two provinces will not 
force her inevitably to declare war on Germany? 
And since the desire for revenge lies deep in the 
heart of France, and is unalterable, ' ' concludes 
Herr von Radowitz, "we have an interest, we 
Germans, in not allowing her to recover, to grow 
stronger, and to regain the force which she would 
use against us; we have reason for rendering her 
incapable, from now on, of injuring us." 

There is but one word to describe such a policy: 
it is the method which consists in dispatching the 
wounded on the field of battle. {Hear! Hear!) 
Because the sword is broken in a man's hand, 
because he lies prone, let us kill him off, for he 
might become an enemy later. 

We cannot pass over these things. We never 
speak of them, and it is better not to. But 
nevertheless, in the French parliament, which de- 
termines the policy of the government, is it not 
necessary that these things be repeated from time 
to time {Hear!) without malice to anyone, with- 
out anger, without provocative intent, in order 
that we may see clearly the course to which they 
have led us {Applause), and in order that in the 
light of these signs furnished by our adversaries, 
— I would not call them our enemies, — we may 
ourselves decide freely what course it behooves 
us to adopt? 

The blow miscarried, as I was saying. And 
M. Ribot was entirely right, the other day, in 
saying that it was not diplomacy that created 



22 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the Triple Entente. No, it sprang to life spon- 
taneously, because it was in the interest of the 
three powers; because, as Bismarck was never 
weary of repeating, England and Russia were 
wondering whether their neutrality had not led 
to a bad result in enfeebling one continental 
power at the expense of another and in establish- 
ing the German hegemony. Yes, Bismarck abused 
Gortschakoff, and could not even succeed with 
Queen Victoria, whom he called, in a letter to his 
sovereign, "That exalted old lady." (Laughter.) 
But it is a fact that when the question came of 
crushing Prance anew, Queen Victoria and Russia 
rose of their free will, without entreaty and with- 
out diplomatic overtures, to say: "One moment! 
We must talk of this first!" 

Well, gentlemen, the hegemony of Germany has 
pursued its course; events have brought the 
peoples together, and the Triple Entente has 
arisen over against the Triple Alliance. Why? 
That is the great subject of dispute between 
France and Germany. To-day Germany says to 
us, "I am at variance with England, and the 
trouble may lead me a long way. Well, keep out 
of the battle, or rather, come to my support." 
We reply, " It is impossible. ' ' And then Germany 
answers, "That is proof enough that you want 
to bring on war." 

But nothing i& farther from the fact. Peace 
results from an equilibrium ; and this equilibrium 
was established spontaneously, apart from any 
diplomatic intervention, as I was showing a 
moment ago. And in spite of that, five threats 
of war since 1870, $nd without an act of provoca- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 23 

tion on our part: the affair of 1875, the affair of 
Schnoebele, in which the honesty of Kaiser Wil- 
helm cut the Gordian knot of the quarrel; and 
then, — I am coming back to Morocco, Mr. Presi- 
dent, and I ask pardon for having gone so far 
afield, — and then the three Moroccan affairs of 
Tangiers, of Casablanca, and of Agadir. 

This is the preparation for the work of peace 
to which you now invite us. 

. . . How will the German policy, the origins of 
which I have just been indicating, manifest itself 
in the observance of the Franco-German agree- 
ment of November 4? 

You must know, gentlemen, that so far as quo- 
tations go, I could cite as many as I pleased; 
from generals, for instance, say from Marshal 
von der Goltz, who has great military renown in 
Germany, and who is president of military 
leagues in which men, women, and children are 
invited to participate, as if their country were 
in danger. Or I could speak of those new arma- 
ments which cause so much uneasiness in various 
parts of Europe, all of which is so disquieting, 
so threatening. 

And when M. Eibot and the Premier ask me, 
"Would you take the responsibility of rejecting 
the treaty! Have you thought of what may hap- 
pen? 1 " I am obliged to ask them first of all 
whether they themselves fully understand what 
the vote on the treaty involves. 

Out of all the quotations that I could offer, I 
shall choose but one. In one of the most im- 
portant reviews of North Germany — the Preus- 
siches Jdhrbuch, edited by Professor Delbriick, 



24 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

former member of the Reichstag and a liberal 
conservative — I have f onnd an article by a widely 
known military author, Herr Daniels, which 
speaks definitely on the question. If I had read 
it in the beginning I might have refrained from 
speaking, which would have been profitable to 
the Senate. (No! No! Go on!) 

Hear me, gentlemen. This is no ordinary quo- 
tation ; not at all. For those who know who Herr 
Daniels is, and what sort of review the Preus- 
siches Jahrbuch is, and who see that the whole 
idea of the author is to extol the treaty and to 
show why it is good, the article possesses a 
peculiar importance. Listen then to his argu- 
ments to prove that the treaty is good and ought 
to be ratified: 

"As long as Germany is not determined to 
plunge into an interminable series of wars, she 
must content herself with gleanings in colonial 
dominions. . . . We should be happy every time 
we have a chance to acquire a piece of territory 
in foreign lands. A more magnificent and more 
dazzling colonial policy does not befit our interna- 
tional situation, as Prince Bismarck justly recog- 
nized. Such a policy may be possible some day, 
if we can wait patiently until the hour has struck 
for revenge upon our rivals. To attempt it at 
the present time would bring Germany tumbling 
from her high position." 

After saying that the opposition in the Reichs- 
tag would have been justified if "by the Moroc- 
can agreement, Germany had really retired from 
Morocco,' ' Herr Daniels continues: "But there 
can be no question of that. Our economic develop- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 25 

merit in Morocco under the French protectorate 
is a question of time. But we are by no means 
politically paralyzed there. If the French judged 
the matter in as superficial a fashion as the 
German parliament, and if they persuaded them- 
selves that they are free forever from German 
intervention in Morocco, a painful awakening 
will "be inevitably assured to our amiable neigh- 
bors. The Moroccan treaty creates in the North 
African empire a state of things far more favor- 
able to us than that offered by the act of Al- 
geciras or by the Franco-German agreement of 
February, 1909." 

After having specified that it would be for 
France to pacify the country by armed action in 
the interest of German commerce, Herr Daniels 
declares that "The surly critics of German 
diplomacy" ought themselves to render justice 
to the efforts of Kiderlen-Waechter, "if they are 
not filled with the strongest mistrust as to the 
sincerity of the intentions of France." He adds: 

"We acknowledge that we fully share this 
feeling. But the political value of the Moroccan 
arrangement does not appear to be diminished 
by it. A few years from now there will have 
arisen plenty of subjects for dispute, created by 
the non-application or the sophistical interpreta- 
tion of the Moroccan treaty, due to the excessive 
spirit of commercialism in the French colonial 
policy. So much the better! People will know 
by that time what profitable work a nation of 
energetic colonizers, supported by a good admin- 
istration, can do in the Congo, and it is to be 
hoped that our diplomacy will then be still force- 



26 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

ful enough to oblige the French who are impa- 
tiently demanding a freer and freer hand in 
Morocco, to cede to us new territories from their 
rich equatorial domain. . . . 

"If the French continue to be our diplomatic 
adversaries, German diplomacy is worthy of all 
praise for having been able to hold the Moroccan 
question open." 

And after quoting an article from the Figaro, 
in which it is stated that the agreement of Novem- 
ber 4 is "The beginning, and not the end, of 
innumerable difficulties, ' ? Herr Daniels concludes : 

"Morocco therefore continues — as the Figaro 
says to all who do not yet realize it — to be an 
instrument in the hands of German statecraft. 
This confirmation, all the more agreeable because 
we had doubted it for a moment, is at the heart 
of the negotiations, if Germany, upon Atlas, 
would keep one foot in the stirrup. The war with 
France, which our superpatriots desire to-day, 
can always be had as the result of a later stage 
of the Moroccan question.' ' 

This is how the other party is preparing for 
the work of conciliation in the Franco-Moroccan 
agreement. 

It is true that certain orators have told us, in 
the Chamber of Deputies, that this treaty was 
full of snares and that a new statesmanship was 
necessary for its observance. What is this new 
statesmanship? It is not in the Chamber of 
Deputies that these things should be said, but in 
the Reichstag. (Approbation.) 

This new statesmanship is a policy of rap- 
prochement with Germany about which a great 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 27 

deal has been said in recent times. This policy 
of rapprochement was born in the circles of 
finance. 

I have nothing bad to say of the financiers, but 
I think they are more useful in their place in 
finance than in the foreign policy of France. 
{Hear! Hear! Vigorous applause.) 

M. he Provost de Launay. Or even in her in- 
ternal policy. 

M. Clemenceau. They have no scales for the 
imponderable (Hear!), for the sentiments and the 
passions and the ideas which make nations act; 
they see only the things that are bought and sold. 
This is not enough; and the principal vice of 
financial agreements with Germany, we must not 
blink our eyes to it, is the danger of increasing, 
by profits which we leave with the other party, 
the force which is directed against ourselves. 

That is what financial pacifism is; and it bears 
no good fruit. 

. . . There is another kind of pacifism. It is an 
intellectual pacifism, born of humanitarian ideal- 
ism, which has an excellent representative here 
in the person of M. d'Estournelles de Constant. 

M. d'Estournelles de Constant. It is a patriotic 
pacifism. 

M. Clemenceau. My dear colleague, idealism 
and patriotism cannot be contradictory. 

You have spoken for it exceptionally well; only, 
when you came to your conclusion, you told us 
that we must replace the policy of antagonism by 
the policy of conciliation. 

But I repeat that it is not to us that this needs 



28 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

to be said. I know that you have gone about 
advocating the doctrine in many places, and I 
congratulate you upon it; but when you explain 
to us that the interest of Germany is not in war, 
I answer you, with the facts that I have cited, 
that peoples are always moved by their immedi- 
ate interest, and that, unfortunately for us, it is 
not you who are charged with the interests of 
Germany. (Hear! Hear! from various benches.) 

M. d'Estoumelles de Constant. What is the 
use of replying to you ? I did it in advance in my 
speech. 

M. Clemenceau. There is also a revolutionary 
pacifism. I would not speak ill of it ; it belongs to 
four million voices that have just made them- 
selves heard on the other side of the Rhine. That 
is a clarion call which you should hear after the 
expressions with which I was acquainting you a 
while ago. 

M. Flaissieres. Very good ! 

M. Clemenceau. Only, we must not be deceived 
by it. All of those men, if their country were 
menaced, would shoulder a gun. Bebel said so, 
it is his honor to have said so, and it would be 
dishonoring him not to believe him. (Hear! 
Hear! Vigorous applause.) 

I do not despise his way of thinking. I do not 
underrate his good intentions; only, in practise, 
I am obliged to admit that I have no means of 
utilizing them. 

And so much the less since revolutionary paci- 
fism, arising in the masses, is still so impregnated 
with ancient doctrines of violence that, though 
these men preach peace between nations, they are 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 29 

none the less prompt to preach violence at times 
within the nation {Rear! Hear!), and that, in an 
access of passion, a warlike movement might take 
possession of them as of others. 

And yet we are pacifists, in the sense that we 
have no desire for aggression, that we will do our 
utmost to maintain peace, that the work which 
we have undertaken and of which I was speaking 
a while ago aims too high, far too high, for us 
to risk it, in a day of battle, in favor of one of 
those pretexts which in France we call "German 
quarrels. ' ' We aim too high and too far, I repeat 
it, and since we are a party to a cordial under- 
standing, since all peoples have an interest in 
keeping peace, since war to-day offers to us so 
horrible a spectacle that no man, in the future, 
will have the heart to take up his pen to sign 
the irrevocable declaration, we have still guar- 
antees of peace. 

In all good faith we want peace; we want it 
because we have need of it to rebuild our country. 
But in spite of all, if war is imposed on us, we 
shall not be found wanting. {Loud applause from 
all sides.) 

This is the trouble between Germany and us: 
Germany believes that the logical result of her 
victory is domination, and we do not believe that 
the logical result of our defeat is vassalage. 
(Loud applause from all sides.) 

We are pacifists, or rather we are pacific, but 
we are not dependents. We do not subscribe to 
the terms of abdication and the surrender of our 
rights as our neighbors have drawn them up. 
We are heirs of a noble history and we mean 



30 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

to preserve the tradition. (Unanimous approba- 
tion.) 

M. Gaudin de Villaine. Those are the words 
of a true Frenchman. 

M. Clemenceau. The dead have created the 
living; the living will remain faithful to the dead. 
(Hear! Hear!) 

And what should we say to this new generation 
now coming to us, looking upon us with mistrust- 
ing eyes, because we bequeathed to them a France 
less worthy than we inherited her? Should we 
tell them to disown their history, to forget it, to 
abdicate, to sumbit themselves to the inevitable 
fate of peoples who have ceased to live? 

No. We have still something to say, something 
to do, something to will. (Hear! Hear!) 

February 10, 1912. 



n 



THE THREE-YEAR LAW—THE CONFER- 
ENCE OF BERNE— THE ZABERN 
AFFAIR— HANSI 

A Ceitical Hour 

The affliction of past defeats, which still leave 
a bleeding wound on both sides of the Vosges, has 
placed our frontier under the permanent threat 
of the greatest concentration of soldiers that the 
world has ever seen. 

Our first necessity is existence. Therefore it 
is inconceivable that the French people, while 
far from any idea of provocation, should hesitate 
to make in self-defense sacrifices similar, if not 
equal, to those so easily obtained, in the neigh- 
boring empire, by a political policy which only too 
deservedly arouses here and elsewhere the fears 
of aggression. 

The nation has the right to require, in return, 
that the military command, which has often been 
found in fault, should be able to turn their manly 
effort into the most efficient channels. The obliga- 
tion to provide for the necessities of an armed 
peace such as Germany is forcing on us entails 
an increase in effectives, not in order to maintain 
an old routine such as magnificently led us to dis- 
aster, but for a methodical plan of military edu- 

31 



32 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

cation and preparation with a view to a superior 
efficiency. 

May 5, 1913. 

The Confeeence of Beene 

What is the good of so many empty words? 
When the French and German delegates come 
together at Berne, it will be necessary to open 
conversations according to diplomatic nsage. 
What will be the subject of discussion? 

I read in the newspapers that, in the first place, 
the question of Alsace-Lorraine has been ex- 
cluded. This is the simplest act of prudence. 
However, if, on both sides of the frontier, those 
who say nothing of it are thinking about it all 
the time, I wonder wherein lies the advantage of 
bringing together persons who, holding conflicting 
ideas upon a given question, can only agree not 
to breathe a word about it. 

There remains, as it happens, the question of 
reducing armaments, which may give an opening 
for oratory. Only (mark the misfortune) Ger- 
many has just recently seen fit to increase her 
military forces to such a formidable degree that 
France, in turn, sees herself compelled to aug- 
ment her own effectives. It is an unhappy point 
of departure for a tilt of oratory which ought to 
lead to quite the opposite conclusion. 

I know well enough that many of our delegates 
at Berne intend to vote against the projected 
French law on the strengthening of effectives, but 
misfortune has ordained that their German col- 
leagues, in whatever concerns their country, 
should be of quite the opposite mind. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 33 

... I do not know whether the members of 
the Keichstag who will make the journey to 
Berne will be those who enjoy a considerable in- 
fluence over their colleagues, but it appears to 
me that the most influential one among them 
could offer no interpretation capable of palliating 
to the slightest degree the force of an argument 
thus conceived: "We shall be able to talk of 
the reduction of armaments when we shall have 
augmented them." 

May 10, 1913. 

Foe National Defense 

The thing that too many people among us will 
not yet understand is that Germany, organized 
primarily for the exercise of military domination, 
could not, even if she would — and certainly she 
has no appearance of desiring to— escape the fate 
of a growing passion for war. 

All Europe knows that we are on the defensive 
against her, and on that point she herself can 
have no doubt. Under pretext of guaranteeing 
herself against our agression, she will only con- 
tinue her programs of super-armament up to the 
day that she considers propitious for destroying 
us. For one must be wilfully blind not to see that 
her rage for domination, the explosion of which 
will one day shake the whole continent of Europe, 
commits her to the policy of the extermination 
of France. 

If the catastrophe is inevitable we must then 
prepare ourselves to face it with all our energy. 
That is the reason why I am, in general, disposed 



34 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

to refuse nothing to the government, whatever it 
may be, for those defensive measures which it 
requests from parliament. Those who saw 1870- 
71 can no longer let slip a single opportunity, 
however small, to avoid a return of those terrible 
days, the horror of which could only be increased 
a hundredfold. At least, if fate inflicts on me 
again, with aggravated horror, that indescribable 
anguish, the memory of which still haunts me, 
I have firmly resolved never to lay to my own 
account the slightest responsibility for anything 
that can enfeeble my country when she engages 
in the supreme combat for existence. 

I wish all deputies were inspired with that 
sentiment which caused an illustrious man, who 
played an eminent part in the war of 1870, and 
whom I do not believe to be enthusiastic for the 
three-year law, to say the other day: "Service 
for five years would be absurd. Yet I should vote 
for it if the government asked it of me, for I do 
not wish to reproach myself on my death-bed with 
having contributed, even in part, to a catastrophe 
from which France would never recover." 

May 21, 1913. 

Eesolution ob Death 

... At Eeuilly, at Toul, at Belfort, announce- 
ment is made of mutinous acts, which must not 
be exaggerated, for the most turbulent would be, 
perhaps, the most ardent in times of war, but 
which are making a most unfortunate impression 
abroad (read the comments in the German press) 
and in France itself. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 35 

... At Macon, at Nancy, troops of soldiers 
have sung the International and have cried Vive 
la Sociale! 

... Is it then possible that these sons of the 
vanquished, rinding their country dismembered, 
intend, at the very frontier and under the insults 
of the Pan-German press, to add the outrage of 
their revolt to the wounds of their mutiliated 
country, as though better to prepare the way fbr 
the execution of the threats of the enemy? Their 
fathers, fallen on the field of battle to safeguard 
the land of their forebears, could not prevent 
their fellow Frenchmen from being severed from 
France by the blade of the victorious sword. A 
whole people cried out to heaven that France 
would one day find herself again. Happy the 
dead who have not seen reparation for outraged 
justice denied them by those very ones who, at 
the bar of history, owed it to them most! 

What then has happened! You have been told, 
poor fools, that all men are brothers and that 
there are no frontiers in nature. It is the truth. 
But ever since Cain and Abel, the lower passions 
— the common lot of all! — have armed brothers 
against brothers, and when my brother comes to 
me with blade unsheathed I intend to protect 
against the hand of Cain the land where my people 
have lived or will live after me. 

Say there be no frontiers in nature; neither are 
there any cities or monuments or any of those 
productions of art and of science by which civil- 
ization is glorified, with all the brilliant proces- 
sion of history, whose noblest culture has made 



36 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

a miracle out of humanity. All that, however, 
is, by justice and common consent, the heritage 
of every man. 

But greed is inflamed — sooner or later — at the 
sight of treasure, and walls are raised and battle- 
ments and bastions are arrayed for legitimate 
defense. And sentinels watch on the ramparts to 
protect the fruit of righteous toil. And just as 
to-day you mount guard for yourself and others, 
others to-morrow will mount guard for you. 

Shame to you, if you gave over to irreparable 
devastation the last retreat of all beauty and of 
all nobility. You think you have an idea, poor 
wretch, you are only feebleness run mad. 

Someone has to begin, say you? Not at all. 
There must be two at least for a beginning. 
While you are disarming, do you hear the thunder 
of cannon across the Vosges? Take care. You 
might weep your very heart's blood without being 
able to expiate your crime. Athens, Borne — the 
grandest monuments of the past — were swept 
from the earth on the day when the sentinel 
failed, as you have begun to do. And you, your 
France, your Paris, your village, your field, your 
high-road, your little rill, all of that tumult of 
history from which you emerge, since it is the 
work of your forefathers, is it, then, nothing to 
you, and will you, without emotion, hand over 
that soul, from which your soul is sprung, to the 
fury of the foreigner? Yes! Say then that it is 
that which you wish ; dare to say it and be cursed 
by those who made you man and be dishonored 
forever. 

You stop, you did not understand, you did not 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 37 

know. A heavier sacrifice than you had thought 
was required of you ! It is true. It is an increase 
of effort which has been demanded of you, as of 
many others, who would have believed them- 
selves unworthy of France if they had murmured. 
Very well! Remember that it is not yet enough 
for your country. Some day, at the most beauti- 
ful moment, when your hopes are flowering, you 
will leave your parents, your wife, your children, 
all that you cherish, all that your heart clings 
to, and you will go away, singing, as to-day, but 
another song, with your brothers — blood brothers, 
those — to face a fearful death, which will wipe 
out the lives of men in an appalling tempest of 
steel. And it will be in that supreme moment 
that you will see again, with sudden clearness, all 
that is meant by the one loved word, my country; 
and your cause will seem to you so beautiful, you 
will be so proud to give your all for it, that 
wounded or stricken to death, you will die content. 

And your name will be honored, and your son 
will walk proudly, for, happier than you, he will 
have understood from childhood the beauty of 
sacrifice for the nobility of the home, and his 
heart will beat faster at memory of you, and you 
will have lived, and, dead, you will continue to 
live in the hearts of your own. 

Say nothing. I see that now you understand. 
Go, expiate your fault and return to us absolved, 
to find again among us the happy place which 
you thenceforth may claim as your right. 

May 21, 22, 24, 1913. 



38 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

The Effort 

... It is no less than the life or the death of 
France that will he the stake of the terrible game 
the horror of which, to-day or to-morrow, may be 
inflicted upon us. If the French people have not 
realized this it is because their representatives 
have not fulfilled their duty. But since they 
understand it very well — I cannot do them the 
injustice of doubting it — it is for them to show 
that they are ready to make that supreme effort 
of will which is necessary to prevent their being 
struck out of history. It is not a question, then, 
of preparing for some fine, triumphal Ther- 
mopylae to make a beautiful page of history. It 
is a question, in the long and difficult prepara- 
tions which must be made, of leaving to the enemy 
not an atom, not a single atom, of the chances 
which we can take away from him. 

May 25, 1913. 

To the People of Berne 

I am a little vexed at our eastern neighbors 
for obliging me to talk of them continually, for 
I could find other subjects of reflection. But 
when a man possesses a small estate for which he 
has a weakness, and when, on the other side of 
the hedge, he daily sees appear the face of 
Polyphemus, framed in two menacing arms, at the 
extremities of which gleam blades of steel, he is 
inevitably constrained to seek for his neighbor's 
secret thought. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 39 

I say secret thought, for the public thought, at 
least according to the words in which it is ex- 
pressed, might be rather reassuring. If Poly- 
phemus sharpens his knife it is in the interest 
of good order and because he suspects, in all 
frankness, that I may eat him raw. The fear that 
I inspire in him is so real that he accumulates 
"dry powder" in his basement and trains on my 
garden a panoply of arms such as was never seen 
before. From time to time, to calm his fright, 
he emits a war-cry and belabors me with raucous 
words which would fill me with terror in my turn 
did I not know that he only does it to quiet his 
nerves. 

The good Cyclops, moreover, is at times a 
philosopher and does not fear to engage in con- 
versation on the pleasures of our neighborly re- 
lations. At heart he likes me, his natural good 
humor leads him to confess it to me, and if I 
would simply enter into his service, the whole 
universe would envy me my lot. Besides, he does 
not hide from me the fact that he has received 
from heaven the mission of appropriating what- 
ever is necessary to permit him to further, in his 
own way, the good of humanity. It is even thus 
that the good of humanity is found to be un- 
detachable from the great sword of Polyphemus. 
If I do not look out Polyphemus will find himself 
placed under the necessity of conquering his 
innate weakness for the delights of peace, and 
the lot of the base Ulysses can teach me what to 
expect. 

All this talk, accompanied by the clangor of 
arms with which the abode of the giant resounds 



40 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

night and morning, might have occasioned some 
uncertainty as to the underlying intentions of my 
redoubtable interlocutor. 

For centuries we have had "squabbles," as we 
say. It appears to be inevitable when people are 
such near neighbors. Strange! There had re- 
mained no ill feeling between us. We used to 
exchange visits and even to find, at times, a 
certain pleasure in each other's society. He used 
to pour out for me long draughts of mead, of 
which he is very fond. I used to hear him talk 
about his little blue flower or sing of Gretchen 
with the golden locks for whom the villainous 
demon lies in wait, of the revels of the witches, 
or the cavalcades of the Walkyries. He had 
learned everything and knew how to make the 
most of it. It was only in my thoughts, too re- 
mote for him, perhaps, that he could never share. 

I interested him, however, for one day, profiting 
by my defenselessness, he tore up the hedge from 
my garden to enlarge his park, saying that every- 
thing would be better thus. And as I could not 
resist, he took my purse at the same time, for 
the reason, he explained, that good accounts make 
good friends. 

The matter did not turn out, however, just 
exactly as he had predicted. What he had left 
me of my garden soon appeared to him much too 
large to suit his taste. Just where I plant flowers 
he would like a border of cabbages and he swears 
that my rose-trees are an offense to his potatoes. 
My virtue is not his virtue: it appears that it is 
a great vice. And in his good intention of teach- 
ing me how to live, he sometimes cries out to me 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 41 

that he would like to cut me in four, to look at 
my works. This kind of neighborliness is very- 
fatiguing. One can neither sleep nor wake in 
peace. 

... It is not three months ago that I paid a 
visit, in Paris, at the home of a foreign lady 
whose husband fills an eminent position in his 
country. The governess of her children, a charm- 
ing young lady with rosy cheeks, "blue eyes, and 
yellow curls, entered the drawing-room and came 
directly to me. 

"I know you very well," she said, as she shook 
my hand in a friendly way. "You are our enemy, 
for I am from Dantzig. You detest us." 

I protested that she gravely misjudged me. 

"At most," I explained, "I have sometimes 
said, like Diogenes to Alexander, that you shut 
off part of my sun." 

"No, no, you hate us. I have nothing against 
you. I detest the English dreadfully and I live 
in England. We'll fight them one of these days. 
You see, Monsieur, people can be regenerated and 
grow powerful only through war. They have to 
have blood. It is the law. Believe me, the safety 
of humanity is in war, in war only. ' ' 

And the lovely child laughed, highly amused 
at my expression. 

Polyphemus, Polyphemus, such are thy chil- 
dren! 

June 2, 1913, 



42 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 



The Question of Alsace-Lorraine 

The Germans proclaim that there is no question 
of Alsace-Lorraine. In that case, how comes it 
that for them it is a permanent subject of dis- 
cussion? 

It is certain that, if you ask the chancelleries, 
everyone from the minister to the lowest clerk, 
will tell you, without even being obliged to consult 
the daily records, that no ambassador's report, 
no diplomatic document, discusses the German 
regime in the annexed provinces. 

It would be none the less a great piece of stu- 
pidity if the diplomats were to believe that a 
question which they did not discuss was nonex- 
istent. I have reason to believe, moreover, that 
even though they never open their mouths on 
the subject — which is not certain — the question 
of Alsace-Lorraine is none the less present in their 
thoughts when they discuss the relations of people 
to people, or the causes of dissension which array 
nations one against the other and foster in them 
a spirit of hostility. 

It cannot be otherwise, for the question of 
Alsace-Lorraine flourishes, not in the flowery 
fields of diplomacy, but in a nook from which no 
German police force could uproot it — I mean in 
the inviolable refuge of the human conscience. 
There is not a law of the Eeichstag, not even a 
decree of the Emperor of Germany, that can pre- 
vent people from thinking and of thinking ac- 
cording to the dictates of right and of morality 
that they have learned from universal teaching. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 43 

. . . The Republic of Miilhausen was German 
in language when she gave herself to France in 
1798. Can one be surprised that she had not fore- 
seen that to give herself to France was to give 
herself to Germany? All through the course of 
time there was no " question of Miilhausen " for 
Miilhausen 's thought was French though her 
language was German, and she felt that France 
allowed her to follow her own conscience. There 
is a "question of Alsace-Lorraine" for there is a 
difference in thought, much greater than that of 
language, between the annexed provinces and our 
conquerors. 

Can one come at that thought, by force or by 
kindness, in the most remote fastnesses of its 
impregnable retreat ? I allow myself to raise cer- 
tain doubts in the matter. 

. . . Germany can choose. The Poles of Prussia 
will tell her the same story as the people of 
Alsace-Lorraine; namely, that the fate of a land 
can be decided, for a time, upon the battlefield, 
but not the mastery of souls, which escape the 
might of the sword. 

June 3, 1913. 

A Question of Existence 

If I am told that "the people " recoil before 
the three-year law reduced to thirty- three months, 
I answer that "the people " has, as yet, charged 
no one to tell us so, but that if it is their will, 
we must without delay renounce our independence 
and go beg on bended knee for "the friendship" 
of Germany, who demands only to make use of 



44 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

us to burst forth over the rest of the world — in 
exchange for which she will permit us, perhaps, 
to keep Burgundy and Champagne. 

I wonder, indeed, why we are bent on pre- 
serving just enough military power to attract the 
shock of the German thunderbolts, to see our- 
selves again carved in pieces, slashed up, ground 
down, despoiled of our goods, our dignity, our 
reason for existence, falling to the lowest depths 
of servitude, and crowning the deeds of our great 
ancestors with an ignoble surrender of ourselves. 

I have already said what that argument as to 
the supposed will of the country is worth. Every 
man who works for himself and his family natur- 
ally desires to be removed from his labor only 
for that period of time which is absolutely nec- 
essary. And when he is asked what term seems 
to him preferable he will always answer, "The 
shortest possible/' 

But can one, in good faith, argue that the terms 
of the question are such ! This workman does not 
wish to become German, I assure you. He clings 
to his home and his country with all that is in 
him. If he had been able to foresee, before the 
war of 1870, what danger threatened him, he 
would have lavished his sacrifices without count- 
ing them and from the financial point of view 
only — subordinated here — he would have made a 
wise transaction. 

June 8, 1913. 

The Two Sides 

. . . Bismarck found us one day at his mercy, 
as he had already found Vienna, and there oc- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 45 

curred to him the evil idea of wounding us, of 
mutilating us irreparably, in order to render us 
forever incapable of a return to strength. Of 
Austria, whom he had spared, he made himself 
a willing or unwilling friend. As to France, his 
idea was to crush her out of all possible rivalry 
by leaving her panting on the battlefield, dis- 
membered, ruined, bled white, incapable, it 
seemed to him, of gathering together the strength 
to live. And all this is so true that five years 
afterward, when he believed he discerned, from 
our first movements towards reconstruction, that 
we might be able to stand erect some day, it re- 
quired the rest of Europe to prevent him from 
hurling himself upon us to bring us to our end. 
In the end, the worst was that all Germany, in- 
sanely intoxicated with her victory, made Bis- 
marck's sentiments her own, believing that it was 
enough to silence the demands of the commonest 
generosity in order to seize upon the empire of 
the world. 

That is what we are all expiating to-day. For 
when a man, or a people, has thus cast aside the 
mask and allowed the world to see, in the depths 
of his soul, sentiments that he cannot avow with- 
out blushing, how is he to pardon in others the 
pangs of conscience for which he dares not openly 
accept the responsibility? To finish us, to finish 
us, it is the obsession of his thoughts. In what- 
ever form the avowal of it may escape her, Ger- 
many has but one thought: to finish us, that is 
to say, to reduce us to such a state of servitude 
that she can, according to the confidences of 
Pyrrhus to Cineas, proceed to new conquests 



46 FKANCE FACING GERMANY 

which will give her the hegemony of Europe, 
while she awaits the rest. 

. . . Meanwhile, pray, what are we doing 1 The 
Republican party, without a head, without disci- 
pline, without method, without resolution, with- 
out determination, without government, wears 
itself out, dissipates itself into minute and im- 
potent organisms in order to endeavor to institute 
the reign of minorities, and hands over the power 
to its adversaries. 

And when Germany, in her cynical candor, 
claims on all sides that her neighbors are taking 
the off ensive against her, in preparing themselves 
to resist the aggressions that her super-armaments 
foretell, when there occurs on our frontiers an 
amassment of soldiers such as the world has never 
seen before, do you know what is the action of 
the Republican majority? It spends days and 
weeks discussing how to arrange for the victory 
with the least possible inconvenience to the 
French people. 

June 4, 1913. 

Call the Roll ! 

. . . On the merits of the question* the argu- 
ments have been exhausted. Is it not enough to 
state that in these last two years Germany has 
made, for the increase of her effectives, an. effort 
equal to that which a methodical plan had allowed 
her to carry out between 1873 and 1910, that is 

*The debate in the Chamber of Deputies was on the three-year 
law. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 47 

to say, in thirty-seven years of interrupted 
growth? 870,000 men in the standing army of 
Germany, better trained, better furnished, better 
organized than ours, and 480,000 in the army of 
France: is this not enough to say! 

As to the manner of making up this deficit, so 
far as possible, one can debate indefinitely; the 
Chamber has not failed to show the fact. But 
it is time to come to some decision, and as soon 
as possible, unless we would be thought of as no 
more than a people of debaters. 

The radical objection is to tell us that a de- 
clining birth-rate condemns us to an inferiority 
to which we must resign ourselves. This I refuse 
absolutely to accept. If our movement of growth 
has relaxed, the duty to herself of the France 
still subsisting is to make a greater effort toward 
reestablishment, not to veil her face and abandon 
herself. 

Surely no one dreams of proposing to us not 
to defend ourselves. But the question is not 
whether we shall defend ourselves. Abandoned, 
betrayed, without resources, trodden under foot, 
we have proved that we could make a valiant 
enough defense. There were explanations, on that 
occasion, for our defeat. There would no longer 
be any to-day. For it is not enough to fight well 
to make a fine page in history. Our business 
now would be to repel the invader, to roll him 
back beyond our frontiers, and this under pain of 
being cut to pieces, enslaved, reduced to a state 
little better than death, delivered, in the last con- 
vulsions of agony, to the ironical compassion of 
the conqueror — more cruel than his barbarism. 



48 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

If a people confronted with this implacable 
dilemma is not capable of arising at a bound to 
assemble all its forces, without reserve, to protect 
its right to life, its end is written in the book of 
fate. And further, those of our friends who, in 
the excellent intention of reducing the expenses 
of the country, exert themselves to lessen the 
three-year period of service, month by month, or 
man by man, or in whatever way their ingenuity 
permits them to shorten it, are in my opinion on 
the highway toward the result indicated. 

In order to reach the goal, one must be capable 
of passing it. Is not this the fundamental prin- 
ciple of athletic training, as in the training of 
soldiers? And is there not, in equal truth, an 
athletic and moral training for a people to fit it 
to meet, not only the foreseen, which is calculable, 
but also the inevitable surprises of the unfore- 
seen! 

June 29, 1913. 

Apology 

. . . We have an enthusiasm which nothing can 
dampen, faith in the country, courage, fortitude; 
our soldier is the best. We need preparation and, 
in this respect, our eventual adversaries are in- 
comparably superior to us. Well! The prepa- 
ration will come to us only from a government, 
and from a government that knows its mind. 

. . . Those who, seeing the evil, resign them- 
selves to it or make themselves accomplices of it, 
$o a wicked work, and I will combat them with 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 49 

all the force that is left to me. Questions of per- 
sonal interest are nothing to me. I ask nothing 
of the Republic but the liberty to say what I think, 
all that I think. And I shall continue to say it 
in the interest of my country. I know that I am 
out of fashion. I take pride in it, because I have 
no need either of criticism or of praise to continue 
straight upon my way. 

This unhappy country, troubled, disunited by 
the sorry parliamentarians whom power irresist- 
ibly attracts and terrifies at the same time because 
they are lacking in will, has need of those of her 
sons whose hearts are still brave and who will 
dare to say, in order to awaken energies now dor- 
mant, what too many feeble consciences are bent 
upon concealing. The role is fine enough for any 
good Frenchman to be happy to play it. 

July 4, 1913. 

The Zabekn Affair 

I do not know why there has been so much talk 
about the Zabern affair. What is there that can 
astonish those who know the German rule? 

The affair was Alsatian before becoming Ger- 
man. That is the first point to consider. 

Germany took Alsace-Lorraine away from us, 
Vvdth five billions to defray expenses of original 
establishment, and the first of thanks was that 
the conquered country must be Germanized by 
any and all means. No sooner said than done. 
Immigration and shrewd policies, these were the 
two methods that seemed surest to inculcate in 
French heads a love of Teutonism. From the 



50 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Prussian land and neighboring territories there 
came streaming a starveling crowd, attracted by 
the hire of favors which, by the aid of the admin- 
istration and of the army, it would scarcely fail 
to obtain. 

Professors, administrators, and soldiers pre- 
sented themselves first; the ones instructed to 
speak, the others to act, according to the good 
German method. Under their wing there soon 
arrived a flood of immigrants instructed to play 
the role of those tame elephants in India which 
are sent out among their wild fellows in order that 
they may lead the latter quietly into the enclosure 
of stout pickets. Furnished with glory and a good 
appetite, this band, quite as well disciplined for 
their civil roles as for the military, installed them- 
selves in the lands of others, and said "We are 
at home." Those who were really at home there 
looked at the newcomers, listened to them, and did 
not understand that they had become the property 
of the foreigner ; a mute misunderstanding, but a 
deep one, which was bound to have consequences, 
which has had them and will have them. 

Under the Empire, when I went to visit my 
friends in Alsace, I used to be naively astounded 
by the remarks which, in public and private, dem- 
onstrated an unceasing reprobation of Germany. 
The reason was that they already knew each other 
across the banks of the Rhine. It needed no more 
to explain the feelings of both parties — which the 
conquest would soon have carried to the point of 
exasperation. 

Here, to be just, I must make a distinction be- 
tween the cultivated classes of immigrants and 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 51 

the simple occupants more or less directly placed 
under administrative tutelage. Had someone 
shrewdly distributed the roles, or may we believe 
in the mitigating influence of culture of whatever 
kind? At any rate, the truth obliges me to say 
that the processes were different. One party 
utilized brute force in its naked reality and the 
other made an effort to mask it by persuasion. 
What a surprise for the two comrades when their 
contrary methods led them to similar results! 

The German could say "We are at home" to 
the Alsatian as long as he pleased, but none the 
less there remained two populations side by side. 
The words " native" and "immigrant" tell the 
whole story. The Alsatian heart is tender, but 
terribly obstinate. There is something tragi- 
comical in the testimony of those witnesses who 
appeared the other day in the court at Strassburg 
and began with the words, "As for me, I am a 
German." Well, well! And the others, what is 
their nationality, then? What an avowal, in the 
necessity of that distinction! 

Nevertheless, the agents of graciousness spare 
themselves no less than the agents of Brutality. 
At the head of the government in Alsace sits a 
man who, under the surveillance of a brute, exer- 
cises, in the cause of Teutonization, the very finest 
gifts of the amenities. And the thing that must 
stir the amiable irony of the Alsatian mind to its 
depths, is that the brutal and the gracious, equally 
powerless to conquer the hearts of the people, 
should get to reproaching each other for their 
respective methods, to accusing each other of their 
common defeat, and to fighting each other even 



52 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

at the risk of provoking in the " natives' ' that 
smile which Lieutenant Schadt, half drunk when 
he stopped the passers-by, could not endure, any 
more than could the immortal von Forstner when 
he was forced to have himself escorted by four 
men, with fixed bayonets, when he went to buy a 
bar of chocolate. 

Yes, all this story of Zabern is the conflict of 
two methods for an identical result. And how 
instructive ! 

January 12, 1914. 

Under the Great Saber 

It cannot be contested in good faith that, in the 
race for armaments, it is Germany who is leading. 
She has acquired a military hegemony, and she 
means to develop it. The history of Europe since 
1870 is the history of the growth of the German 
military power. Nothing has been done around 
us except by or with the will of the Kaiser, and 
as his will had necessarily to leap the barriers 
of continental boundaries, a stupendous game, 
with Asia for a stake, has been opened among the 
powers under the saber of Wilhelm II. 

Such a state of things cannot continue without 
arousing apprehensions about the balance of 
power, and this is exactly the triumph of the 
policy of Germany, who is pleased to remind us 
from time to time, the better to impress her might 
upon us, that it is in her power to upset every- 
thing. Proposing peace, she is preparing for a war 
on such stupendous lines that imagination revolts 
at the mere occurrence of the picture. What 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 53 

mightier instrument of moral coercion than this 
monstrous threat hanging eternally over our 
heads! Berlin has made us feel too often its 
efficacy. 

The masterpiece of Bismarck was to harness a 
vanquished Austria to his fortunes. Italy was 
admitted only by favor to the company in which 
the German government reserved the high com- 
mand. For the other powers the situation became 
so intolerable that Russia, France, and England 
came together, by common consent, to save what 
might remain of independence on the continent. 

This was a great disappointment for Germany, 
who would have been glad to complete the work 
of dismemberment in 1871 by the moral conquest 
of an annexed France, after the fashion of Aus- 
tria-Hungary. After that she would have been 
able, with her formidable fleet, created in all its 
effectives by Wilhelm II, to crush England, with 
our aid (Eussia being pushed back toward the 
Orient by persuasive methods), and to rejoice in 
the glory of a Teutonized Europe. It is in this 
sense that we must understand the professions of 
love for France with which the Kaiser amused 
himself when he said to certain Frenchmen, "If 
you were willing, we could be the masters of the 
world, we two." 

The Triple Entente is made, and it will continue 
in spite of the kindnesses, sharpened by threats, 
with which the German sovereign, from time to 
time, pleases to annoy us. If one of the three 
powers allowed herself to be caught in the snares 
of the tempter, nothing less than an epoch of 
Europe would come to an end. But there is noth- 



54 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

ing that leads me to suspect — it does not even 
appear possible — that such an event is in a way 
to happen. Thus the German power finds itself 
met by an equal power, which, without threatening 
Germany — for there is no desire for agression at 
London or Paris or St. Petersburg — arrests her, 
nevertheless, on the threshold of the formidable 
enterprise to which she is feverishly tempted. 

Whence comes that bad humor, as of ill-bred 
people, which inspires in our excellent brethren 
across the Rhine the unpolished phrases about us 
with which they appease themselves when they 
find — and even when they do not find — an occa- 
sion. The amusement of these great warriors of 
the pen is to play giant-killer and to make Europe 
tremble at the glowering of their brows. Yet I 
have seen a day when, without a word of reply 
to their threats, France did not tremble. 

. . . Let Germany choose her hour. She will 
discover the moral might of a just cause, sup- 
ported by courage and military preparedness. 

March 6, 1914. 

News from Germany 

... I have often recalled the admirable pro- 
test of Bebel, Liebknecht, Sonneman, and their 
friends in 1871 against the annexation of Alsace- 
Lorraine and have made it a point of honor to 
express my thanks to them. But the times have 
changed, and we cannot help it on one side or 
on the other. The number of socialists has grown 
beyond all expectation. I cannot declare that the 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 55 

chances of maintaining peace are improved by it. 
What is taking place at this very hour is a strik- 
ing demonstration of the fact. It is not the social- 
ists who have stirred np the Post, the Cologne 
Gazette, the LoJcal Anzeiger, and even the Ber- 
liner Tageblatt, which is suddenly breaking, as 
by a given signal, with its moderate policy. The 
socialists have not been consulted, they are not 
to be consulted; but when the match has been 
touched to the powder, the men of the socialist 
party, like those of all other parties, will accept 
or submit to the Kaiser's offensive ivar and will 
arrive at the frontier of France with their outfit 
of cannon and rifles. 

If the German people themselves were freely 
consulted, I can easily believe that this war would 
not take place. But by the analogy of what I saw 
in 1870, when not a Frenchman was dreaming of 
war with Germany, a fatality against which we 
shall all be powerless to resist will plunge us, if 
the envoys of God on earth so decide, into the 
yawning gulf before us. 

. . . How could I fail to draw these inferences 
when I see all the German press suddenly turned 
loose, as if by military order, against Russia, and 
arriving cynically at the conclusion of a preven- 
tive war? 

. . . What security can there be in Europe 
when the fate of peoples depends on the will of a 
single man who, according to what he believes 
to be the interest of the moment, can with one 
word throw his millions of soldiers in arms across 



56 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the frontiers of his neighbors? His power is one 
of aggression. His most accredited interpreters 
avow it, they scientifically display the reasons 
which oblige the German government to decree 
universal massacre in the interest of the German 
nation. It is a significant thing that the turpitude 
of the "masters of the world" and of their faith- 
ful servitors has come to making such avowals 
without revolting the opinion of the country. 

If all of a sudden this tempest of menaces has 
fallen upon us, there must be some sort of reason. 
The newspapers would not be newspapers if they 
stopped short of explanations. It means very 
little to tell us that all this is preliminary to the 
renewal of a commercial treaty too unfavorable to 
Russia, in which German commerce will renounce 
some of its advantages. 

Germany has great designs on all parts of the 
world. Her economic interests make this neces- 
sary, and it would be childish to complain of it. 
What is intolerable is her intention to keep Europe 
living under the terror of her arms and to replace, 
by the perpetual menace of a general war, the free 
international debates in which even selfish interest 
sometimes gives way to a feeling of justice. 

Nothing has happened, so far as we know, to 
justify the violent explosion the spectacle of which 
angry Germany is giving to the peoples who, up 
to the present, have claimed the honor of being 
civilized. A fit of indignation, of vexation, even 
though founded on poor pretexts, might be under- 
stood. But even that is lacking. Are we to be- 
lieve that we are perpetually condemned to in- 
terrogate, each morning, the physiognomy of the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 57 

Kaiser in order to know whether we shall be 
allowed to live in peace a whole new day, rejoicing 
that the moment has not yet come when this very 
gracious prince will judge it the interest of his 
dynasty to twist our necks? No such regime can 
be installed in Europe. If the whole world to- 
gether has more wit than Voltaire, the whole world 
is stronger than the strongest emperor, who, more- 
over, may quite possibly find himself a wretched 
commander-in-chief. 

March 11, 1914. 



Internationalism 

The world is enlarging. There no longer exists 
a country which can live a life apart. Every 
morning a printed sheet comes to it in which it 
may find, if fancy prompts it to take note, the 
news of the whole world, with the movement of 
prices in neighboring markets or beyond the seas. 
And this is no empty amusement. Out of the mass 
of information which pursues a man and sub- 
merges him from morning to night, by telegraph 
and telephone, he draws, for his affairs, for his 
economic or political or social interests, certain 
conclusions, more or less true, which may be 
profitable to him if he takes the trouble to give 
them his attention. An international mind is de- 
veloping on all the continents of the earth, for 
on coming to know various lands and various peo- 
ples with different manners and customs, we dis- 
cover between them and ourselves relationships of 
every kind with which we must make our reckon- 



58 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

ing, with an eye to our present course and equally 
to our preparations for the future. 

The world is enlarging, in the sense that the 
individual is becoming more and more a citizen of 
the earth, and one might equally well say that it 
is growing smaller, in the sense that people are 
coming nearer together, whether to hate or to es- 
teem each other, to fight or to cooperate. Our 
pacifists base magnificent hopes upon "the love 
that is stronger than hatred," because, in my 
opinion, they have failed to notice that all life 
is a conflict of opposing forces always manifested 
in the fulness of their powers. The fact that the 
reason of man, and a sentiment of justice which 
is his distinction — accompanied, to make it 
stronger, by an interest well understood — inspires 
him to a better regulation of these forces, is only 
a demonstration of the law of social evolution 
which no one can transgress. But as for carrying 
this process of voluntary moderation to the ex- 
treme of pure pacifism — a thing which a verbal 
idealism at the disposition of every man often 
takes pleasure in dreaming of — it is to this that 
my mind, considering the realities of life, and dis- 
trusting the abstractions which substitute meta- 
physical creatures for actual human beings, can- 
not accommodate itself. If, nevertheless, the 
great day of universal love should ever come, in- 
calculable years after my death, I shall certainly 
not refuse to rise from the grave to pay my tribute 
of enthusiasm to a new human nature, and I shall 
be glad indeed to know that I was deceived. 

But in the present case, since it is the fate of 
man to share the life of his own time, I would 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 59 

ask indulgence for my inability to advise my fel- 
low men to attempt, from this day forth, to realize 
in their concerns the sublimities which heaven has 
reserved as a possibility for a time as yet un- 
specified. That is what leads me, when my neigh- 
bor is arming himself, to arm myself in turn, to 
the best of my ability. That is what leads me, also, 
— for there are many ways of being strong, — to 
wish for my country a government of good order, 
compatible with liberty, which, by authoritative 
regulation, may promote the best development of 
all our energies. That is what leads me, finally, 
to watch very closely the governments that show 
aggressive spirit, and the state of mind among the 
peoples who submit to their domination, while 
every sign of weakness among independent nations 
capable of offering resistance to hegemony arouses 
in me a continuous anxiety. 

In the situation we have occupied since the war 
of 1870 every Frenchman ought to understand 
that the questions called "foreign' ? concern Mm 
for so many reasons that it is madness for him 
to decline to be interested in them. All the men 
who have erected their want of energy into an easy 
philosophy have extolled the happy days when 
peoples passively submitted to the law of the 
strongest without ever worrying themselves about 
the consequences, for themselves or for their chil- 
dren. If such was the golden age, we must resign 
ourselves to the fact that we shall never see it 
again, for the soul once delivered does not return 
to its fetters. At the cost of great exertions, the 
nations are more and more working out their own 
destinies, and this in the measure in which the 



60 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

men who compose them accept the duty of per- 
petually assisting the common cause with wise and 
prudent labor. 

. . . The Frenchman cannot without difficulty 
bring himself to admit that modern life requires a 
redoubling of efforts from every man in every 
field of work. Does he not begin to discover that 
all around him there is rising a mighty cry from 
mankind demanding energy at all costs, every- 
where and at all times'? Is not being the first 
necessity for doing, is it not necessary to stand 
erect, physically and morally, to hold one's own 
against every hostile enterprise, if one would de- 
velop and grow, if one would not fall headlong? 
Is not this the very law of life? 

The Germans made this discovery immediately 
after the treaty of Frankfort and I have never 
concealed the fact that the unanimity with which 
they gave themselves to their work enlisted my 
admiration. I should have been glad to see a simi- 
lar enthusiasm among my fellow-citizens. It is 
true that in Europe, where so many frontiers are 
so indefinite, we must first of all give our attention, 
like too many other peoples, to the defense of our 
territory — a task far from pleasant for a people 
who have for a neighbor a conqueror whom vic- 
tories have intoxicated with the spirit of mastery. 

M. Charles Eichet, who is now at Berlin— 
whither he has gone to recommend the adoption, 
by the next convention at The Hague, of the prin- 
ciple of obligatory arbitration — is by no means 
embarrassed by all these considerations. He is 
one of those who from the first understood the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 61 

necessity of the three-year law. But he also pro- 
poses to us the formula of M. Leon Bourgeois: 
behind a screen of bayonets, an established prin- 
ciple of obligatory arbitration. I read that he has 
had a friendly welcome in university circles, and 
that does not at all astonish me. But he will soon 
learn that although private individuals cannot but 
be gracious to him, the ideas which he advances 
cannot find a fertile soil in Berlin. Possibly it 
has occurred to him to attend a lecture in which 
Dr. Walter Bloem treats of war as the necessary 
means for developing the highest moral virtues in 
mankind. He went to Berlin to teach ; there is no 
harm done if he finds an opportunity to learn. 
Ah ! if he could arrange a fine lecture in rebuttal, 
it would be well worth the trouble necessary. 

I do not know what impression those private 
conversations will make upon him. When the 
Teuton is not brutal he can very easily be a sham 
good fellow. But the rule has exceptions numer- 
ous enough to allow M. Charles Eichet to bring 
back from across the Rhine a great lot of useful 
information. We know already what he is going 
to say at Berlin, and the people there have known 
it too, for a long time. The replies which he will 
receive, — for his trip has obviously two purposes, 
— will be very instructive, if they are sincere, on 
account of the position of his interlocutors — 
especially if they are willing to put their real 
thoughts before him. He will surely be willing to 
enlighten us on these matters as soon as he re- 
turns. Whatever he may have to say, we shall 
find in his report an assemblage of the signs of 



62 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the times from which, for my own part, I am ready 
to secure what benefit I may. 

But let it be clearly understood that we must 
see straight. The question to ask the men at Ber- 
lin is necessarily this : will you agree to establish 
between peoples, and particularly with the French 
people, a rule of obligatory arbitration for all dis- 
putes that may arise? In case a providential 
miracle should incline them to answer in an un- 
conditional affirmative, perhaps it would be well 
to ask them whether they observe any disposition 
in the German people (I say nothing of the gov- 
ernment, which, nevertheless, must be considered) 
to agree in this opinion, and at what date, approx- 
imately, it seems to them possible to realize such 
a revolution. 

In my desire to discourage no one, I dare not 
carry the interrogation further and seek informa- 
tion as to what our neighbors might think about 
disbanding the army. It still remains to be dis- 
covered how we should establish the military sanc- 
tion — that is to say, war for the suppression of 
war — in the absence of which obligatory arbitra- 
tion would be shorn of obligation, 

April 1, 1914. 

Bargaining for Life 

There are certain times when a breath of reso- 
lution passes through a people and inspires them, 
in individual and in national action, to vast ever- 
sions the history of which gives little comfort to 
reactionaries. We have known such moments, 
and I think I can say that the civilization of the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 63 

world is the better for them. What good would 
it do us to blind ourselves to the hours of weak- 
ness which rival nations do not fail to make the 
most of? I hope I may be correctly understood, 
for this word of " weakness" would be very mis- 
takenly interpreted if anyone should think that I 
mean it in the sense of decadence. 

Alas, history teaches us but too well that, in 
the conflicts of races in which mysterious blends 
are working, peoples, like individuals, have their 
curve of evolution. The races that have reached 
the highest civilization have come to the w r orst 
ends. And yet the great discoveries which have 
so powerfully changed and hurried human life by 
the use of steam, oil, and electricity have undoubt- 
edly furnished us with new conditions in which the 
phenomena of human development can and must 
be modified. It is therefore by no means neces- 
sary to conclude, from the fact that we have al- 
ready done a great work for humanity, that we 
must undergo a continuous weakening of energy 
as a result. 

When I compare the France of to-day, in her 
activity of all kinds, with the France of former 
times, the tradition of whose thought we have in- 
herited, I do not feel that we are really unworthy 
of our ancestors. In all the fields of intellect there 
is nothing to show that we have declined. What 
were the problems of Athens or Rome in compari- 
son with those that press us for solution? Grad- 
ually, all mankind is rising in the scale of intelli- 
gence, and, to tell the real truth, there are even 
in our scandalous party quarrels certain elements 
of greatness. For there is no people worthy of 



64 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the name which develops more incessantly than 
we those general ideas which will amplify the 
future of all mankind. 

It is just this which places us in a different 
position from that of our fathers. The scale of 
relationships is altered. Formerly a very small 
number of nations occupied the theater of civiliza- 
tion and pompously entitled themselves "the 
World. ' ' That time is past. The great races have 
swarmed, creating in every country a tumult of 
activity and thought, and on every continent a 
buzzing of hives stirring notifies us that the im- 
mense workshop of the human species is resound- 
ing from the encounters of men and of ideas out 
of which will be born the world of to-morrow. 

Our ambition to make a mark in the history 
of this noble labor is assuredly not beyond our 
strength. But, rolled back by Germany from con- 
tinental frontiers which since the defeats of Na- 
poleon we had considered impregnable, we are 
painfully trying to reconcile two problems: the 
maintenance of our territory at any price, and the 
evolution of political liberty and social justice in 
a France which shall be mistress of her fate. 

The defeat of Varus could not take away from 
Koine, face to face with the German hordes, her 
crown of human culture ; and so with us after the 
defeat of MacMahon. The great difference is that 
the German tribes have taken a place, in their 
turn, in the ranks of civilization, and open against 
us every day, during the peace, a battle in its own 
way as fearsome as those that took place in the 
encounters of a war whose memory is still alive in 
our hearts. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 65 

When we reopen, since we must, the discussion 
of the three-year service, I wish that every French- 
man might be possessed, first of all, with this idea : 
that if the conflict comes about for which all the 
German race is madly preparing, our defeat would 
mean the final enslaving of our people, the very 
termination of our history. This is where we 
stand, and since we stand here, it would be the 
height of crime to leave to evil fortune any chance 
of which our foresight might deprive her. I am 
quite willing to give too much for national defense. 
I decline the right to give less than is necessary, 
however little. 

May 14, 1914. 

Objectively 

M. Boutroux has given a lecture at the Univer- 
sity of Berlin on French thought and German 
thought in their relation to the development of 
human culture. M. Hansi has been sent on from 
the tribunal of Colmar to the court of Leipsig to 
be tried for high treason. 

M. Boutroux tried to reconcile German idealism 
with German realism, which seem to oppose each 
other with equal forces. He said that the German 
subordinates man to society, while in French 
thought the idea of the individual is dominant. 
He expressed the hope that each one of the two 
peoples might continue to develop its own per- 
sonality, without declining, however, to seek in the 
principles of its neighbor the sources of new en- 
thusiasm. Professor Eiehl, of the faculty of phi- 
losophy, thanked the French orator, in the name of 



66 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

his colleagues, and concluded in these words: "A 
spiritual bond has been welded here to-day; this 
hour has seen an event in our life." 

At this same time the idealism and the realism 
of the German tribunal at Colmar united to pro- 
nounce an unfavorable verdict upon the traces of 
French sentiment recognized by expert magis- 
trates in the album of Hansi entitled My Village, 
for the use of French children. The ideal spirit- 
ual bond invocated by Professor Riehl in terms 
to which we are happy to render homage is thus 
found put to the proof before the realism of the 
Herr Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine. The hour 
which marks an event in the life of the professor 
of philosophy in Berlin brings another tocsin call 
to the city of Colmar, which sees Hansi, sur- 
rounded by police officers, on his way to jail, pre- 
paratory to appearing at Leipsig to be tried for 
the crime of high treason. 

And what has Hansi done ? He felt and thought 
freely, in a country which is his own, where the 
supremacy of the "All," as M. Boutroux says, 
seems irreconcilable with the liberty of a part ; so 
much so that in the character of one part Hansi 
must make his reckoning with the domination of 
the "All," as represented by the judges at Leip- 
sig. To translate all this from German into 
French, I may tell you quite simply that Hansi 
is accused of having publicly defamed the police 
and the school-teachers of Alsace-Lorraine, by 
writing that the ones had thick heads and that the 
others had heavy hands for their Alsatian pupils ; 
all of which tends to disturb the public peace, it 
is alleged in the territory of the Empire, by means 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 67 

of pictures which I made the mistake of finding 
charming, and in which the little children of Alsace 
are presented as " Those who do not forget," to 
the little children on the other side of the Vosges. 

. . . If it were permitted to me to take the 
floor, I should say a word, not for Hansi, who 
will know how to plead his cause, but for his ac- 
cusers. Yes, in the same spirit that inspired the 
discourse of M. Boutroux, I would defend, against 
themselves, the men whose passions for idealism 
and realism, variously combined, impel them to 
acts which are insulting to the mind of civiliza- 
tion. 

Come, men of Germany, since it is said beyond 
the Rhine that I have judged you wrong, here is 
the best of opportunities to confound me. Do I 
not do you honor in hoping that you are minded 
to profit by it? 

Hansi made fun of the police and the school- 
teachers. He did not tell the truth, you pretend? 
In that case, where may the danger be? Every- 
one will give him the answer that is proper by a 
simple shrug of the shoulders. 

. . . Acknowledge it frankly, the phrase, the 
only phrase, that you really fear is " Those who 
do not forget." Very well! Why shouldn't we 
talk about it? — objectively, according to a method 
that you love. Not as Frenchman to German, but 
as man to man, as if I were Monegasque and you 
were Dutch, for example? I suggest that we try 
it. I shall not need to use any effort to confuse 
you ; just the facts, without comment. 



68 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

By force of arms yon took Alsace-Lorraine. 
Such events are as old as history. People take 
territory, people also take men, without caring 
whether they will or not. If fortune had been 
against you, the problem might have been re- 
versed, I acknowledge that. I shouldn't fail to 
blame my country if it had acted as yours did. 
That doesn't prove that Hansi was wrong; it 
doesn't prove that you are right. 

In a speech that I delivered, as Premier, at a 
dedication of a monument to my friend Scheurer- 
Kestner, I made a clear claim for ourselves, as for 
Alsace-Lorraine, to the right not to forget* And 
since, in my office as head of the government, I 
had made it clear in the beginning that the ques- 
tion of legal right was not under discussion at 
the time, Prince Radolin, the ambassador of Ger- 
many, whose perfect courtesy deserves my admi- 
ration, came to thank me, in the name of his gov- 
ernment, not for the sentiments I had expressed, 
of course, but for having looked at the question 
from a point of view from which a man should 
regard it if he spoke, in the circumstances, in the 
name of the French state. 

Well! what has Hansi done more than I did? 
Absolutely nothing. He has said that those of 
Alsace will never forget, any more than those of 
France, and not a word escaped his lips which 
will permit the court at Leipsig to seize upon a 
statement of hopes in which there can be honestly 
discovered the guilt of high treason. 

Now I, coming from Monaco, I ask you from 
Amsterdam, would you think better of the ac- 
cused if he had — in his personal interests, this 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 69 

time — repudiated his mother country, from which 
the force of arms had torn him, than if he had 
retained his love for her! And since your reply 
cannot be in doubt, tell me, my good man, if it 
seems right to you to send a man to prison because 
you think well of him? 

Nay, rather did the honest Hansi, in expressing 
himself with a noble freedom, render honor to 
the masters of the day, by supposing them capable 
of the respect which every act of noble sincerity 
commands. If warlike violence has continued to 
rule over men, just as in the times of primitive 
humanity, the human conscience has remained no 
less, since the origin of the race, the inviolable 
asylum of all worth. And the most certain prog- 
ress surely consists in the fact that every day 
the number of men grows who rigorously respect 
this supreme refuge of humanity. 

Can it be denied that a government degrades 
itself in the eyes of the civilized world when it 
feels that it cannot exist in the presence of upright 
consciences enjoying a just measure of liberty? 

May 21, 1914. 

For Military Defense 

When we are told that we must live in peace 
with our neighbors, I am very far from objecting. 
We have shown well enough that, though we do 
not put peace above honor — a sentiment without 
which life is no more than bestial — we are firmly 
in favor of anything that may steady the stag- 
gering edifice of European peace. But let us not 
forget that it needs at least two to keep peace, 



70 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

and that all the skill of the best driver of an 
automobile is vain in case a driver coming from 
the opposite direction gives the wrong twist to 
his wheel. Civilization, just as savagery itself, is 
made of appetites, more or less legitimate, which 
rnn in opposite directions. And there is not al- 
ways an infallible driver. And all drivers are 
capable of making mistakes. The accident is the 
more fearsome in that here it is the life or death 
of peoples which may be in question. 

As a remedy for evils so great, the puerility of 
pacifism is obvious. As a proof, consider the 
men who, actuated by the best motives on both 
sides, came together at Berne, the other day, 
from Paris and from Berlin, with the express 
purpose not to say a word of the principal ques- 
tion that occupies their thoughts. There was not 
one who was not thinking of Alsace-Lorraine. 
There was not one who did not present himself 
with a finger on his lips to signify that they could 
speak freely about everything except the question 
that had brought them together. 

Take note that the men whose minds remain 
closed to the evidences that attest the irresistible 
force of deep-rooted conflict are the same who 
serenely adopt the principle of defending our 
frontiers by the power of infallible formulas, to 
the humanitarian splendor of which I am by no 
means indifferent, but which I deem irritatingly 
weak in practical value. The capital mistake of 
the revolutionary socialists is to believe that they 
are superior to the rest of men because they do 
not yield a point of their idealism in the face of 
the indestructible realities of human nature. The 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 71 

non-existent is an immense empire, as someone 
has said. They might reign over it in peace if 
they were alone in it. 

... I do not know whether it is easier to or- 
ganize the society of the future in the military 
sphere than in the economic. What is certain 
is that an organization of armed force is the first 
general notion which the revolutionary extreme 
left has thought itself able to present to us. I 
am very far from underestimating the value of it. 
I am only preoccupied with attending to the first 
necessity, and the first necessity is to have a 
frontier decently protected, even though we may 
be contented with forces inferior to those on the 
other side. 

June 4, 1914. 

A Question of Existence 

Oh, yes, I fear equivocation about the question 
of service for three years as much as on any other 
matter. It is not that I consider the period of 
three years as irreducible. I simply believe that 
this is not really the time to dispute about it, when 
the law is still no more than a written text, not 
yet in operation, since it has not yet been pro- 
vided for financially, and since we are still eigh- 
teen months distant from the day when our 
soldiers will enter upon their third year of service. 

Let the advocates of the militia system defend 
their theory, since the parliamentary rule gives 
them full liberty to do so, and, far from being 
inimical to them for it, I think that their argu- 



72 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

ment should be carefully examined. But what I 
demand emphatically is that we may be told what 
are the frank and final aims of one party and of 
the other. We have already had a three-year 
service, and I did not feel anv more "reaction- 
ary" than I do now. 

... Is it now, when the law is not yet really 
operating, that we must start to consider chang- 
ing it, without having put it to a test? I cannot 
admit that. Not that I oppose the advocates of 
a reduction of military service in their wish to 
employ, in their way, the total effort of the armed 
nation, which is one of our own hopes. But I 
notice that the majority of those who are willing 
now to reduce the period of service under the 
colors, thus accepting such risks of moral and 
military weakening as I am not ready to run, 
make no secret of their intention to bring us 
back, by an easy descent, to the militia system of 
the citizen-soldier. 

Let no one think that this word presents itself, 
under my pen, with a smile of disdain. It means 
for me, on the contrary, the highest development 
of social man. But when forty years of the Be- 
public have as yet given us only faint gleams of 
civic education, can we sincerely believe that the 
voting of a law will cause to spring from the 
ground a new man, who will exemplify virtues 
of every kind harmoniously combined in the en- 
thusiasm of disinterested social activity! 

I am quite aware that we decreed such a man 
in 1871, but, to consider only the realm of civic 
duty, I should not like to argue that we have 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 73 

realized him. I have a profound conviction that 
such a citizen will come. At what time will it be 
given to our children to see him? I have no means 
of specifying. Time is needed, undoubtedly, a 
great deal of time, with a powerful effort of con- 
science to achieve full mastery of self, before a 
notable majority of Frenchmen will be able, not 
merely to make fine professions, as to-day, but 
to justify to the full their pretensions to the en- 
viable nobility of that highest title. I say this 
without depreciating in the least the fine quali- 
ties of our people, for whom I have a very lively 
admiration. 

As for our civic preparedness, we can wait (at 
the price of many risks) until it be furnished by 
progressive education and by the daily enjoyment 
of common liberties. As for individual super- 
education in the military sphere which the militia 
system presupposes, if we want to confront the 
mass formations of the German army, one in soul 
and body, with militia, we shall be required to 
bring to the work such a unison of wills, in their 
highest resolution, that I cannot hope to see the 
sight before the questions which will decide the 
fate of Europe shall have been answered by the 
sovereign argument of steel. It is not our busi- 
ness, therefore, to argue as to what an army of 
democracy can be or ought to be. The problem 
which fate imposes on us is simply to find out 
whether we shall be capable of meeting, at any 
moment, the struggle to which the increases of 
armament may condemn us any day. 

We see, therefore, that it is permissible to dis- 
course at our ease upon the comparative merits 



74 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

of three years or of two years of service, but that 
this is a purely academic debate as long as no 
other system but the three-year law will furnish 
us enough soldiers, sufficiently trained to resist 
effectively, from the first hour, the onrush of the 
enemy. The choice, in fact, is not so much be- 
tween two years or three as between the three- 
year law and the militia law to which those who 
begin by demanding an initial reduction of mili- 
tary service wish to lead us. I have said upon 
what grounds I have made my choice. 

We are told that this choice condemns us to a 
majority on the right if we do not agree to make 
to the monster of parliamentarianism the sacrifice 
that a policy of the slightest strength exacts of 
feeble hearts. I have already said that in a ques- 
tion of the national defense we cannot exclude 
the participation of all Frenchmen any more than 
in the enrollment under the common flag. But I 
am very far from denying the terrible conse- 
quences of such a situation for the Eepublican 
party if it took sides, in a majority, with those 
who, to resist an aggressive power already for- 
midably superior to our defensive forces, are first 
considering a decrease of some months of service. 
If it is true that the Eepublican party has already 
come to this, let it have the courage to say so. 
The consequences, for itself and for our country, 
will follow only too cruelly. 

When France was given into our keeping, 
Napoleon III had already capitulated at Sedan. 
Gambetta, glorified by the second war — useless in 
a military sense, but morally necessary — would 
have been rejected as an unworthy Frenchman if 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 75 

lie had not risen to the height of duty. Daringly 
he consecrated the Bepublicans once more as a 
party of patriotic fervor. Whoever seeks the end 
must not neglect the means. Choice is necessary. 

We cannot deliberate forever, in the manner of 
Byzantium, over modes of action that mean in- 
definite delay, in the hope that to-morrow will 
be better than to-day. Our duty is to act, not to 
make phrases. Open your eyes, orators, and en- 
deavor to learn from your own neighbors what 
the expressive silence of the ' 'pacifiers" of Berne 
suggests. Look at Europe, whose peoples, under 
the hands of their governors, are feverishly get- 
ting ready for the wholesale work of destruction 
under the threat of which fate requires us to lead 
our life. Think of those who will be at our side 
when the terrible day comes and do not forget 
that we owe them a good example. And also 
think of our own people, the French nation, after 
a long and glorious history of which they now 
begin to carry the burden heavily. Observe them 
in thought and in action. See in what momen- 
tary anguish they accomplish their daily labor, 
seeking to respond to the problem, demanding 
leaders who shall be real leaders and finding but 
ostentatious automatons who exhaust in words 
the resolution which should live in vigorous ac- 
tion. Are we advancing in the same measure as 
those who conquered us but yesterday and who 
do not conceal their passionate resolution to 
conquer us again to-morrow I There are many 
indications in the body social which may give 
cause for fear. 

The Eoman church offers us its support, which 



76 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

but for the French Eevolution, would have ruined 
us. This would mean reaction, a king of shreds 
and patches, or his apprentice dictator. For my- 
self, I put my trust only in men, in Frenchmen 
within whom the fire of their great race is still 
burning. I call to them. Let them know them- 
selves, let them join together, let them throw 
themselves into action, following words that are 
clear and straightforward. There is a large Be- 
publican majority to acclaim them and to give 
them confidence. For France the problem is of 
death or life. Let us live! 

June 5, 1914. 



That Will Not Be 

. . . What is the danger, to the strongest minds, 
of an internal convulsion in comparison with the 
imminent menaces from without, against which, 
on account of the faults of her leaders, France 
might have neglected to assure herself? We have 
already known such a disaster. Shame to the 
political party in which the sense of the national 
safety should be so enfeebled that, for the easy 
pleasure of vacillating among schemes for the 
future, it would neglect, with a far too facile 
conscience, to provide the guarantees necessary 
for the present. Whatever it might have done 
in the past, it would thus bring irreparable con- 
demnation upon itself, and the nation, seriously 
enough weakened already in its moral vitality to 
be heedless, would perish. 

This, my radical friends, is what lies concealed 



FRANCE PACING GERMANY 77 

under the confusion of arguments for and against 
service for three years. Our country had ac- 
cepted the heavy burden, without showing a 
moment of weakness. The revolutionary opposi- 
tion, which cannot even aid in the maintenance 
of our i ' infamous bourgeois Republic' ' by so much 
as voting for the budget because it might give 
them the appearance of an abominable com- 
promise, spurns our military organization just as 
they do our civil organization — both of them, cer- 
tainly, not without their defects. And in order 
not to lose their own self-respect, with that of 
those who profess an idealism foreign to our 
humble, terrestrial condition, too many radicals 
whose intentions must remain above suspicion, 
have allowed themselves to be seduced by the 
mirages of the miserable policy of the least effort. 
And many people, as was easily to be foreseen, 
have rushed to the poisoned bait which promised 
them the delights of a pleasant somnolence. And 
you have led us, doing this, all in good humor, 
to what is perhaps the gravest crisis since the 
French Revolution, for, with MacMahon and 
Bazaine, it was material power only, never the 
heart, that suddenly failed. 

Against these words I hear already the pro- 
testations of your unwavering patriotism. Your 
hearts have conserved, you say, all the qualities 
of strength that have made the history of France. 
I know it. I have never doubted it. For if a 
mere doubt were permissible we might as well 
place a tombstone above our glorious past. But 
since the heart is still strong, it must show itself, 
instead of allowing itself to be paralyzed by sorry 



78 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 

notions that arise from fear of doing too much 
for the defense of our country when perhaps* it 
is not enough to do all that we can. We must 
look straight, without fear of dizziness, at the 
abyss upon which we are running, and by a rare 
effort of patriotic strength gain the courage to 
resume the broad highway when the path across 
the fields offers so many dangers. 

For the Republican party, which is ours, is it 
an acceptable alternative to keep tossing back and 
forth between the revolutionists and the reaction- 
aries, without even having the courage to choose ? 
Is it really impossible to remain ourselves except 
by compromises of principle, now to the right, 
and now to the left, according to the fortune of 
the moment? France is at stake, the life of 
France in the pride of her liberty; the noble 
heritages of national virtues handed down by our 
fathers to be transmitted to our children, the 
treasure of thought and achievement which is in- 
ferior to none of the greatest that humanity 
boasts — all that we love, all that inspires us, all 
that we live for, is at stake, and you are deliberat- 
ing. . . . Alas, you are doing worse! For you 
had deliberated, and you had concluded that 
France would not be untrue to herself. And hav- 
ing done this, when all the peoples, thrilled with 
the memory of the great deeds done by your 
fathers, are beginning again to lift their eyes 
toward the children of the French Revolution, 
conquered once but still fired with the high in- 
spiration of their race, you would disown your- 
selves, and your fathers and children with you; 
you would not even be of those who fall in the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 79 

path of reason, but of those who shamefully give 
up for a cowardly need of repose. 

Until I have seen that, I shall proclaim that it 
will not be. 

June 8, 1914. 

Concerns of Fkance 

. . . Peoples, like individuals, have their curve 
of evolution concerning which, in the uncertainty 
of time, we can only advance hypotheses. What 
we can prove is that there are, for racial groups, 
certain periods of irresistible enthusiasm, others 
of weakening. Athens and Borne show us that 
the most noble, the greatest, do not escape the 
inflexible law of action and reaction against which 
our pride battles in vain. They left upon man 
marks that are ineffaceable. But they are dead. 

We have fallen once. We have stood erect 
again. Germany, long slumbering like her Bar- 
barossa under the legendary mountain above 
which ravens circled, awakened in the clash of 
arms and, at first astonished herself, rediscovered 
herself more brutally domineering, more scien- 
tifically overbearing, than ever before. And a 
great burst of ambition has come to her. The 
work of ancient Borne shows her the task which 
she deems worthy of herself. With Varus anni- 
hilated, Arminius aspires to no less than that 
conquest of the world which tempted those whom 
he has just overwhelmed. 

However, this is no longer an enterprise of 
barbarian warfare in which numbers and weight 
of steel count for all. For civilization has come, 
and the implacable way of every hour has as- 



80 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

sumed forms which antiquity had no way of 
knowing. Science without conscience is the two- 
edged ax whose symbolical cult came to us from 
the East. It clears the plains and valleys to make 
great meeting-places for men and, as soon as men 
approach, it turns the other edge to decimate 
them. So comes a development without known 
limit, of the work of life and death, when from 
all those discoveries so justly celebrated as the 
triumph of man over hostile nature, man himself 
derives marvels of murdering power to arrest the 
course of the work on which he founds his pride. 
Whether the law is fatal or not, the German 
people accept it without weakening. No amount 
of science, or of patient, rigid discipline, or of 
determination, or of activity, is too much for 
them. Deutschland uber Alles. They do not by 
any means conceal their designs. In olden times 
the development of the intellect implied, it was 
thought, the necessity of reducing to a second 
place the care for the muscular man. The soldier 
was the doryphorus of Polyclitus; the scholar, 
the emaciated Erasmus of Basle in which Hol- 
bein has concentrated all the thought that a face 
can contain. Now, the full life of soul and body 
is requisite for an effort of total humanity such 
as history has never seen. Of intellect and 
sinews, the maximum development for action is 
necessary. And whoever feels himself capable of 
furnishing everything from his own resources, in 
peace or in war, to the great work, is the master 
of the planet given to his dominating activities. 
Every day it is the hymn of conquest that the 
German press intones, and the children in the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 81 

schools, the young men in the universities, their 
aged professors, and the pretty young girls who 
come to Paris to preach to me, to me personally, 
the virtue and the beauty of German war, send 
a chorus to the army that is quivering in excite- 
ment in its ramparts of steel. 

What forces will be necessary to sustain the 
battle? 

... In the measure in which our country is 
being depopulated, the German invader, during 
peace, prepares his path toward the other. Cer- 
tain victory, thinks the conqueror, without the 
disquieting vision of the Slavic swarm bursting 
over Germany. But what could be expected? Is 
it not necessary, seeing the menace, that France 
and Russia oppose total aggression with the total 
resistance they can offer in material force and 
moral power together? France has her enthusi- 
asms, her passing bursts of ardor, her passions 
followed by renouncements. If she stands firm 
in her determination to purge herself and to 
recreate herself worthy to continue her noble his- 
tory, there is no offensive from beyond the Rhine 
against which she is not assured of holding her 
ground. If not . . . 

But it is not permissible that she spare any- 
thing of herself. Not anything. And in all this 
sickening uproar about service for three years, 
what can we do about it if we do not understand 
that our army itself is but one part of the total 
dedication of ourselves, demanded by a long pro- 
cession of ancestors who made the France of 
history and who call to us to conduct her onward? 

June 16, 1914. 



82 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Triumph or Perish 

:•• . . The immense effort of the masses of 
people in every country for the acquirement of 
knowledge is the most remarkable characteristic 
of our time. It does not seem to me to be doubt- 
ful that the conditions of life among each people 
will be profoundly altered by it, internally and 
externally. If books could make men, schools 
would be enough to insure that "revolution," 
but the teachings of experience must also be 
added; that is to say, time is necessary. I am 
by no means one of those who run the risk of 
tracing — even somewhat vaguely — the main lines 
of our felicity to come. My role for the moment 
is simply to advise our ideologues that the great 
struggles of history, of which the prophets of 
The Hague are announcing the impending end, 
may yet bring about fearsome accidents in the 
democratic evolution of Europe. Let them kindly 
think of the catastrophes with which the amiable 
German press is pleased to threaten us day by 
day, relying on a formidable military organiza- 
tion from which it hopes for something altogether 
different from developments of justice and liberty. 

No one can say what will be the outcome of 
these menaces. But it would be contrary to the 
simplest prudence to take no note of them, and 
to allow ourselves to dream of an abrupt return, 
without obvious cause, to sentiments of humani- 
tarian fraternity. It needs but the smallest dose 
of common sense to understand that the more and 
more rapid growth of armaments can lead to 
nothing else than the employment of those en- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 83 

gines of destruction which are not accumulated 
and perfected day by day for the purpose of a 
love-feast of the kind that took place at Berne 
in the silence of deliberate equivocation. 

Simultaneous disarmament? Who in the world 
of the ruling classes could approach the proposal, 
if it were made, even with apparent gravity? 
Maintenance of the status quo? England, in the 
naval realm, attempted an exchange of views 
with Germany on this subject. The two parties 
came away from the conversation more defiant 
than ever. What then? Disarmament of a single 
power? Whoever should risk this play, in obedi- 
ence to a fool's suggestion, would receive at most 
the satisfaction of bowing in servitude without 
even having tried to save his independence. I 
do not believe that this can tempt us. 

Then what else can we do but prepare in every 
way to defend ourselves? The evidence is so 
strong on this point that Frenchmen find them- 
selves inevitably brought, miracle! to unanim- 
ity. In revenge, the free fancy of each one has 
quickly succeeded in recovering its rights, when 
it came to the question of ways and means. The 
athlete who wants to win the prize does not scant 
any effort. This is a prize, too, a prize of all 
worth, the independence, the honor of a people, 
without which the life of the individual, as that 
of the nation, cannot be otherwise than shame- 
fully base. Why should a nation that desires to 
live seek first of all to spare the utmost possible 
of her resources, when the stake in the combat 
is no less than her own life? Counselors are not 
lacking to turn her aside from the trouble of a 



84 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

too great effort, and our ears are filled with sug- 
gestions favoring the policy of the smallest 
sacrifice of self, supported by the fallacious argu- 
ments which have led the peoples fatigued with 
a too fine history to supreme repose in the shroud 
of memories. 

The history of Athens is inferior to none. 
What a sudden breaking up after the great 
splendor of Pericles, who contributed so power- 
fully, by his own hand, to prepare the irrepar- 
able decline! Philip, Alexander arrived. People 
refused to give themselves to the appeals of 
Demosthenes, whom the poison of Calauria 
awaited. England has anglicized immense con- 
tinents, with the sea itself which surrounds them. 
What will it profit her, if in the face of military 
force which may bring her to her knees to-morrow 
she is able only to lull herself with the eternal 
sophisms of the man who puts the softness of 
repose above the trouble of exertion? 

As for us, dismembered but yesterday, who 
painfully behold a long line of German frontier 
well within the territory of the France of history, 
it is literally impossible for us to close our eyes 
and contemplate, like Great Britain, the chances 
of a splendid geographical isolation against the 
doors of which the tide of German domination 
might come to beat. No, the illusion of this dream 
is not permitted to us. We are still held by too 
many bonds io the heart of the old Europe for 
us to be able to disregard our interests in her, 
or for her to be able, even in the future which 
she fears, to detach herself from us. 

Not a day which does not bring us the news 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 85 

of some achievement in the number or the qual- 
ity of the engines of murder. Every day a 
new effort comes to complete the effort of the 
day before, directed toward a better execution of 
aggressive plans of which no mystery is any 
longer made. In view of all this we cannot any 
longer discuss the necessity of defending our- 
selves. The sole anxiety in this regard, among 
too many people, is that we might do more than 
was necessary. I profess that my fear is not that 
we may see ourselves too well defended — espe- 
cially when I reflect that, as we are firmly re- 
solved never to attack, our adversary will have 
the very great advantage of choosing the hour 
and the place of the offensive. 

When I consider all the difficulties that we 
meet in trying to impress upon so many parlia- 
mentary brains the idea of an immediate estab- 
lishment of forces sufficient to preserve us from 
the mortal catastrophe that might result from a 
surprise, I begin to wonder in what measure the 
institutions of democracy favor or thwart the 
disposition to military resistance which is im- 
posed on every country by the primordial law 
of self-preservation. The democratic progress of 
Germany, whatever the aged Bebel may have 
said to M. Jaures about it, is still far enough 
behind ours. But without pausing for a criticism 
of German Csesarism, it is enough to show that 
all the vital forces of the Empire are advancing, 
in a formidable coordination of regulated activi- 
ties, toward an end of domination — pacific if the 
world resigns itself in submission, violent if it 
manifests resistance to the will of Germania as 



86 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

inscribed in the book of fate. Emperor and im- 
perial oligarchy are marching arm in arm, and 
leading the populace which, in this respect, seizes 
every opportunity to manifest its enthusiastic 
approval. Of what good are the fine phrases of 
the Vorwaerts when the social democracy permits 
representatives — if it does not oblige them — to 
vote the war-tax at a time when our socialists 
refuse their voices for the budget? 

June 25, 1914. 

At Theemopylab 

. . . There is no tax-payer who does not wel- 
come a diminution of his rates. Taxes of blood 
and taxes of money weigh upon us in the most 
cruel manner in all our active pursuits. At the 
moment when we are summoned to find without 
delay six hundred millions in new taxes (we 
should need eight hundred millions with Mo- 
rocco) why is no one proposing that the state 
content itself with four hundred or two hundred 
millions and pay the difference by good mort- 
gages on moonshine! Because the case is too 
clear. We must have good money and nothing 
else. Louis made out of gilt cardboard will not 
pass. So we are very much vexed. There is 
much recrimination, without willingness to ac- 
knowledge that if electors and representatives 
had been more watchful much wastefulness might 
have been avoided. There is lusty wrangling 
over the problem of discovering by what theory 
and practise of taxation we shall raise the tax, 
but, when all is done, we get ready to pay it, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 87 

and that is all that is necessary. What big or 
little veins will be opened by the fiscal lancet 
we do not yet know. What is sure is that certain 
elements of life will be drawn off from us. We 
shall not run away from the operation. 

In the sphere of military service it is again life 
that is demanded of us, in a manner not less pal- 
pable, since we must pay with our flesh and 
muscle, the force of which, turned aside from 
private activity, is alienated to the profit of the 
public service. Though we cannot honestly quar- 
rel over the sums of money written in the ac- 
count-books, any doctrine of slighter effort may 
freely find a hearing as soon as the question is 
only to compute the product of an enterprise of 
military education. Here the mind can indulge 
itself at its pleasure. What more proper for 
discussion than the correct amount of training 
necessary? Magical virtue of words! Verbalism 
is a courser who can smile at the wings of Pegasus. 
With words one builds empires. With words 
might also destroy them. Can one ask of men 
not to let themselves be deceived by seductions 
with which they are themselves thus tempted? 
The country will be just as well defended — better 
even, the promise costs nothing — and at a smaller 
sacrifice! And who would resist the temptation 
to try, when insidious arguments, offered to the 
uncritical faculties of the masses, illumine in their 
minds the hope of acquiring quite as much force, 
or even more, by paying less? Nothing is dearer 
than the cheap things, certain people profess. The 
saying might find its application here. 

Nevertheless the human mind does not find re- 



88 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

pose in one-sided reasoning. How many men 
whose patriotism is above suspicion allow them- 
selves to be carried away by the mirage of a lesser 
effort! Nature has made us so. But reflection 
does its work. We reflect that it is not solely a 
question of giving each Frenchman a certain 
amount of military training in preparation for 
action at an indeterminate time. It is also nec- 
essary that this military establishment, which 
requires a considerable gathering of men into a 
single organization, shall be able to enter into 
action at a given moment, for whatever event. 
That could not be avoided, since, in the period of 
civilization to which we have advanced, nations 
may be required, at a signal, to throw themselves 
like thunderbolts upon one another. 

That is what must be understood, and it is not 
really so difficult as one might believe, since one 
need only open his eyes to discover that the as- 
sassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, 
at Serajevo, is occasioning concentrations of 
troops on the frontiers of Serbia as well as mani- 
festations of violence even in Vienna itself, while 
angry threats against the Serbian people are mak- 
ing themselves heard in the press as well as in 
the notes from the government of the Dual Mon- 
archy. Have we not seen the German press 
employ all its ardor to fan the fire in the too 
evident design of exciting Teutonic opinion 
against Russia, whose newspapers have found 
themselves obliged to reply in energetic protests? 
Is it not a fact that all Europe has taken pains 
to prepare, among the Albanian tribes, a per- 
petual center of incendiarism which will flame 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 89 

out according to the order of the moment! Who 
will preserve ns from the dangers of a spark? 

July 6, 1914. 

Hansi ! 

And now Hansi is condemned to a year in prison 
for not having given lines sufficiently esthetic to 
the German police represented in his charming 
album, My Village, in which the insufficiently 
Teutonic exploits of Alsatian youth seem to re- 
veal, it is said, certain sympathies with France 
beneath the weight of which the " unshakable 
Empire" of the Kaiser might stagger. Poor 
Germany, I should have thought it slander to 
suppose that a witty stroke of a pencil was 
enough to derange your reason. 

What! The largest army in the world, and the 
best trained, an accumulation of riches which 
repays a marvelous labor, a development of 
thought which has held and still holds one of the 
highest places in European civilization — mother 
of the great movement which is in a way to ap- 
propriate the planet for the needs of humanity 
— the mastery of force in peace and war, with 
England threatened on the sea and the continent 
ready to succumb under the crushing weight of 
armaments, with the peoples of the earth, tradi- 
tionally turning their eyes toward the center of 
power, wondering every morning what fate will 
be reserved to them in the cataclysm of Europe 
which is in monstrous preparation, since a cyclone 
may be launched from Berlin capable, possibly of 
changing the fate of the world for centuries to 



90 FRANCE PACING GERMANY 

come: how can one believe that all this remains 
at the mercy of a humorist making sketches? 

If I were a German, the spectacle would set 
me thinking. But the law of compensation which 
reigns throughout the universe has not ordained 
that the fine qualities which command action 
should be always supplemented by meditation. 
A deep revenge for spirits capable of observation. 
The men and the peoples who get infatuated with 
action to the point of vertigo come too soon to 
believe, since they can rule in brutality, that they 
are capable also of determining thought. 

Rome, who was in her time the conquering 
model, had enough self-control sometimes to im- 
pose a curb upon herself when no one was resist- 
ing her. Greece was abominably ravaged by her. 
Never again will be seen, probably, a more com- 
plete triumph of barbarous intelligence over 
superior forms of civilization which had lost the 
force of life. Not only the masterpieces of art, 
torn from pedestals to which a splendid history 
had consecrated them, took the road, at the risk 
of mutilation, toward Roman villas, but the land 
of Phidias covered itself with base productions of 
decadence for the delectation of the conquerors. 
The lucky wreck of one of the vessels of Sulla 
on the coast of Cytherea gave us the finished 
masterpiece of one of the great Corinthian artists 
in bronze. Go and see in the museum of Athens 
what pitiful pieces the pillagers, ignorant of their 
crime, were fearlessly content to place with it. 
It is a striking commentary on the famous words 
in which the Roman general notified the carter 
who was carrying his Grecian plunder, that if 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 91 

he broke the statues he would have to furnish 
new ones. And all this to come to the end told 
in the resounding sentence of the poet proclaim- 
ing that Greece had conquered her ferocious 
victor. For it was at the feet of the victim that 
conqueror soon wished to sit, and Rome would 
not have been Eome without the infusion of Hel- 
lenism which she tried, more or less successfully, 
to effect. 

Alsace is by no means Attica, and Berlin will 
meet, on the road of her determination, resistance 
more obstinate than that of the onrushing legions 
of Varus. The moral problem is none the less 
of the same order. At Strassburg, Germany has 
respected the statue of Kleber with the beautiful 
military inscription on its pedestal. That is well. 
She is beginning to set up, when occasion offers, 
the products of her own art. That is less to be 
recommended. One is welcomed to the threshold 
of the library at Strassburg by a great statue of 
Wilhelm I. What a surprising commentary I 
heard from the mouth of a German functionary: 
"It cost us 60,000 marks; they would have done 
better to spend the money on books." At least 
this man had a notion of the best instrument of 
conquest — for it is to this matter that we must 
return. 

If Hansi had been condemned to a hundred 
years and more of prison ; if he were bound to the 
walls of his cell by steel hooks, in order that even 
when he was dead he might not escape; if, when 
he was dust, doors and windows were walled up 
to keep him there for centuries without end, for 
fear that an infinitesimal part of him might gain, 



92 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

on the wings of the wind, the route across the 
Vosges, in what respect would the Teutonization 
of Alsace have been further advanced! 

Brutal force, it must be acknowledged, has very 
great advantages, since it rules all the external 
world. But the most German of the Germans, in 
his armor-clad soul, cannot be ignorant of the fact 
that there is, after all, an impalpable barrier 
around the inner man against which the sharpest 
sword will break in pieces. And if he is not 
ignorant of that, perhaps he knows, also, that with 
the aid of time, equitably dispensed to all the 
world, it is the inner man who finally determines 
the outer. The history of all times is there to 
attest the fact. Moral force and material vio- 
lence: unequal duel in which victory for the 
apparent weakness is assured. 

What can the judges of Leipsig believe, and 
all of Germany who celebrates them? They know 
well enough that their power is arrested at the 
threshold of the thought of Alsace. Their hope 
is not to suppress the sentiments that displease 
them but to hinder the propagation of them by 
forbidding their expression. It is the imbecile 
pretension of all tyrannies, and their failures are 
written on every page of human history. There 
will be possibly in Alsace — though it is doubtful 
enough — souls devoid of nobility, in whom the 
thought may come forward, "Let us be Germans 
so as not to go to prison, like Hansi, and so that 
we may even obtain positive favors. " Those, 
even before the trial at Leipsig, have had time 
and occasion to consider the argument, in the 
silence of their departed honor. I cannot see that 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 93 

so far the cause of Teutonization is much ad- 
vanced. 

And then there are the others, the others who 
say nothing, since it is forbidden to say anything, 
but who, as long as they have not been all gagged, 
mummified, buried in catacombs sealed on all 
sides, will find hearts and minds, without the per- 
mission of Leipsig, to whom they may pour out 
their feelings. And those, I am very sorry to 
tell their pretended masters, are the men who, 
by the word or the gesture of a revolted con- 
science, are surely preparing for the coming rup- 
ture of the bonds of a day, bonds which the 
silence of the enslaved cannot strengthen. 

And such was the power of Hansi. Only, this 
time, the judges at Leipsig make themselves his 
collaborators, and each day of the long year of 
imprisonment, which will pass so slowly for the 
prisoner in his cell, will be like a living appeal 
from the man whose voice has been stifled to the 
men whose conscience cannot be stifled. And 
when the little children of "My Village" ask why 
Hansi is in prison, Germany, unfortunately for 
her, must tell them why. Terrible, these chil- 
dren, because they reason so straight. And if 
one of them said: 

"Well, when Alsace became French, were there 
men like Hansi who regretted Germany and who 
said so and who suffered for their idea, as he 
does for France to-day?" 

"No. There were not any." 

"Why?" 

Ah, the questions of children, impossible to 
escape them. The children must be told that 



94 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

France let the Alsatians be Alsatians to their 
hearts' content, while Prussia undertook to Teu- 
tonize them. Why should they have revolted 
against France, when France did not oppress 
them! How can they help protesting against 
Germany, when the predominate idea of Ger- 
many in Alsace is oppression? Thanks to Hansi 
and the court at Leipsig these ideas will make 
their way more and more. And the angrier 
the Teutons grow in the vanity of their combat 
with the impossible, the more they employ vio- 
lence against an immovable obstacle, the more 
they will thrust into the soul of Alsace the inde- 
structible idea of its right. And since, as history 
shows, the right must finally triumph . . . fata 
viam invenient. The destinies will be fulfilled. 

Was there ever a more cruel fate than that of 
Prussian Poland! The worst acts of violence 
continue to occur. Constraint has taken the ap- 
pearance of a civil war from moment to moment. 
The little school-children are the first victims of 
it when they forget themselves so far as to say a 
prayer in the Polish language. Teuton to the 
marrow, the God of Luther in the belted uniform 
of a gendarme gives them the full force of his fist. 
The Teutons expropriate, despoil, hunt, and 
murder all who offer resistance, and the German 
colonist, with his pot of beer, his wife and his 
children, comes to install himself at the expense 
of the state upon the "estates without masters,'' 
in the name of the right which every individual 
has to take possession of his neighbor's property 
when those whose function it is to restrain him 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 95 

from it give him their assistance at the point of 
the sword. 

Alsace is under the eye of Europe. Spectacles 
like those which are still taking place on the con- 
fines of the Slavic world would not be tolerated 
here. Germany is compelled here to take more 
care. Therefore she cannot unveil herself to us 
between the Rhine and the Vosges except under 
the aspect of momentary brutalities. This is the 
whole philosophy of the Hansi affair, as comfort- 
ing for Alsace, who intends to remain mistress of 
her thoughts, as for France herself, who has never 
done anything to foment agitation on her frontier 
but who tenderly preserves the memory of a com- 
mon history whose continuity is reaffirmed, in 
spite of conquests, in the happy or unhappy 
proofs of common sentiment. 

A salutation to the prisoner of Leipsig. There 
will remain something of him outside the walls 
of his prison. 

July 13, 1914. 

Neithee Defended nob Goveened 

At the early hour in which I write these lines 
the little troopers are marching to Longchamp 
led by the joyous notes of the bugle; a jolly crowd 
is following or preceding them which, in a little 
while, will be saluting them with acclamations 
in its joy of patriotic fervor; the cannon will 
thunder, the president of the Republic and the 
minister of war, erect and attentive, will review 
the ranks, saluting the flag which will be lowered 



96 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

before the image, more or less faithful, of the 
sovereign power; and with a measured tread, 
which makes one living organism out of a troop 
of men aspiring to something more than human, 
the alert infantrymen, who decide the fate of 
combats, the cavalrymen, in their resounding 
trappings of metal, and the swarthy artillerymen, 
followed by their serpents of steel, will file past, 
lowering splendid standards before the man who 
represents the flag. And just at this time a mon- 
strous cloud appears on the horizon, bringing the 
memory, cruel or joyous, but always proud, of 
the supreme action of the great days, suddenly 
stopped short, in the expectation of the order 
which will send them to the frontier to tell the 
enemy: "We are here!" 

It is a spectacle sublimely grand for whoever 
seeks in it the national achievement of a noble 
force in the service of an idea. The idea is the 
country of our fathers, whose figure stands erect 
in her determination to live for the cause of 
glory, while there hovers in the air the heroic 
warrior-woman of Rude who calls on men to die 
in order that others may live in the splendid 
union of those who have been and those who are 
to be. But, when one is intoxicated with this 
dizzy dream of force, which is mistress of the 
world, crushing, as she does, all the resistance 
of savage brutality in order to make justice 
triumph, the time comes to reflect and to ask one 's 
self at the price of what efforts, of what inces- 
sant sacrifices, this conjunction of might and 
right, which ancient barbarism proclaims chimer- 
ical, can enter into the realm of living realities, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 97 

by the cooperation of the energies of civilization. 

It is the first law of peoples that they must 
defend the heritage of their past, and for this 
mast establish a force which inspires serious 
thoughts in the invader of yesterday whom fate 
urges to begin to-morrow — a force capable of an 
invincible resistance to any aggression from the 
outer world. We have been vanquished, but we 
are victims who are resolved to live, not in sub- 
jection to the conqueror, but in the honorable 
independence of thought and action of which our 
ancestors made the history of France. It is on 
the effective force of the armed nation that is 
founded the hope that is father to our resolution. 
If we are incapable of realizing that organization 
of energies which protects all that is of value in 
life, then all else that we may say or do about 
it is but vain appearance. The country calls for 
men ; we should have given her nothing but talkers. 

What! we applaud the martial music at Long- 
champ, we bare our heads together when the 
Marseillaise bursts upon the air, and yet we 
should not ask ourselves by what stupendous and 
incessant collaboration arises that great French 
army, of which we have just saluted certain bat- 
talions as they passed? Out of the fields, out of 
the workshops, out of the very streets, as out of 
the most elegant drawing-rooms, we take all these 
men, united by the words which they respect 
without always understanding them, though so 
often separated by the strongest selfish interests. 
And working a way through all diversities and 
contradictions we succeed, for a time, in arousing 
in all these men a common spirit which moves 



98 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

them in unison to the highest impulses of our 
earthly nature. Each one of them alone is in- 
significant; the cause makes them grand beyond 
comparison and, however brief may have been 
the ineffable moment when it was given to them 
to feel the cause, they will guard the inspiration 
of it until death. We take them, we train them 
into living machines, we put into their hands in- 
struments of murderous power which multiply a 
hundredfold the strength of their brains and their 
arms. Their captains exhaust themselves (at 
least, so it is said) in endless researches in the 
art of employing to the best these units of war 
in which the least of soldiers brings as a stake, 
upon the field of battle, his body and his soul, 
ready to sacrifice all that he hopes for, all that 
he loves, all that his will is fixed upon. 

This, gentlemen of the government, is a bit of 
theory, of theory on which it is always easy to 
erect verbal edifices by means of which so many 
people are able, without great effort, to rise above 
the common level of every day and give them- 
selves the illusion of momentary grandeur. But 
the day arrives when the theory rises out of the 
ground in frightful reality, for the decisive test 
of the true value of disinterested patriotism which 
expends itself, in time of peace, under the veil 
of sonorous phrases with which the populace is 
wonder-struck. Yes, the day has come in which 
the true manhood of the minds inflexibly bent 
upon preparation for this day may be judged 
justly, according to the result accomplished. 
What have they done, during half a century of 
peace, all those great patriots to whom was con- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 99 

fided the power of creating a superior organiza- 
tion out of our armed forces? France has given 
all her men. With what training for action have 
they been provided? 

. . . M. Charles Humbert, reporting for the 
senatorial commission for the army, mounted the 
tribune yesterday to tell us that, in the race for 
the scientific employment of modern armament, 
we have been left so far behind by Germany that 
our situation, in comparison with that of our 
eventual enemy, was far too similar to that of 
1870. Yes, that is what was not only said to us, 
but demonstrated to us, if I may say so, since 
the minister of war allowed to escape him the 
acknowledgment that the majority of the facts 
alleged by M. Humbert were probably correct. 
And did not M. Humbert announce that he was 
prepared to bring forward all the official docu- 
ments for his support? 

And then, what did the minister say? Simply 
this, that moral force outweighs all other kinds, 
and that with poor arms one may accomplish 
astounding exploits. "Then buy cross-bows/ ? I 
cried to him from my place. He defended the of- 
ficials of the War Office, neither more nor less zeal- 
ous than those of 1870, but whose good sense we 
can estimate by the fact that the manufacturers 
of shells and guns are reduced to recommending 
moral force to silence an artillery to which certain 
of our machines of war would not even permit us 
to reply. I remarked to him that moral force 
results, in very large measure, from confidence in 
leaders, whose first duty is to put their men into 



100 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

condition to face the enemy. What will become 
of that moral force when, at the first thunder of 
the cannon, the troop finds itself thrown into a 
battle which can only end in its being crushed? 
The arms did not fall, for that reason, from the 
hands of the men of 1870. They fought to the 
death, showing that they were worthy of another 
destiny. But as for ourselves, cramped up in 
what remains to us of France, we will not, we 
cannot, undergo the same trial a second time. It 
is not enough to be heroes. We must be victors. 

July 15, 1914, 



Ill 



THE WAR 

DECLARATION— PRELIMINARY OPERA- 
TIONS 

On the Eve of Action 

It is the hour of grave decision. For France, 
indeed, the question is one of life or death. 

In 1871 we were vanquished, dismembered, all 
but annihilated. Bled to the last drops, we en- 
deavored to regain our life, and for forty years 
we have continued, well or ill, to maintain our 
existence. But that very existence is a crime in 
the eyes of our conquerors, who believed they had 
finished with us forever. Less than four years 
after the peace of Frankfort the man who con- 
ceived himself to be the master of Europe was 
attempting to complete our ruin. He would have 
done it in cold blood, as his successor is executing 
the Serbs to-day, if Russia and England had not 
intervened. The civilized world must bear wit- 
ness for us that for these forty years we have 
been a force for peace in the continent of Europe. 
In spite of those human faults and errors which 
exist in every land, we have endeavored, with tire- 
less good will, to organize and permanently to 
establish among us a democratic rule which, 
founded upon liberty, might be able to maintain 

101 



102 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

order in the nation, in the hope that untiring 
labor might keep for us among the peoples that 
place to which our history tells us we have the 
right. 

In this work we must set aside at this moment 
all considerations of party. Whatever may have 
been our bitter enmities in the past, the peril in 
this critical hour is so great that all Frenchmen, 
no matter whence they come nor what thek party, 
must rush, with one accord, to the frontiers, 
united heart and soul in one supreme exertion of 
our determination. In this and this only lies the 
moral force which can render us superior to any 
fortune. When the country, through us, shall have 
regained complete possession of herself, we shall 
once more engage in those strugles which are the 
honor of French thought, since they attest our im- 
passioned search for an ideal of human ennoble- 
ment. But under what changed conditions, when 
the complete sacrifice of ourselves and our all will 
have so well hammered and forged the metal of 
the French soul that we shall no longer wish or 
be able to be divided, save as friends. But that 
is for to-morrow. We must face to-day. 

To-day there must not be two Frenchmen who 
hate each other. It is time that we knew the joy 
of loving each other. Of loving each other for 
what is greatest in us, the duty of bearing wit- 
ness before men that we have not degenerated 
from our fathers and that our children shall not 
be obliged to hang their heads at mention of our 
name. Even our faults, of which the futile appor- 
tionment is a task for history, can only arouse in 
our hearts the stern desire to crown them with 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 103 

that civil and military virtue which may yet dis- 
close in them an element of grandeur. No recrim- 
inations, nor grandiloquent phrases, nor promises 
to die. Enough of words. Acts, thoughtful acts 
of measured prudence, and action, once and for all. 

At five different times since we saw the German 
soldiers in Paris the order of Europe has been 
deliberately disturbed by the menace of the Ger- 
man sword, without the slightest provocation on 
our part to excuse it. We have remained masters 
of ourselves, and when honor commanded us to 
resist, we have fulfilled that duty with the sim- 
plicity of men in whose hearts beats the blood of 
a great race. To-day, what do they want of us! 
We were living in peace. Attentive to the organ- 
ization of our defense, nothing came from our side 
which could suggest a thought of offense. And 
how many times, nevertheless, have we been 
obliged, in stubborn impassivity, to remain silent 
and motionless while from across the Vosges came 
the voice of our tortured people. 

Over there across the Rhine a strong and great 
nation, which has the right to live but which has 
not the right to destroy all independent life in 
Europe, carries the mania of might to the point 
of no longer permitting France to raise her head 
when addressed. Intoxicated with power, the 
German Emperor, who leads his blinded people 
to exploits whose outcome no one can foresee, is 
dealing without excuse and as though haunted by 
the example of the barbaric invasions, the most 
cruel blow against all that is the pride of civili- 
zation. He wishes to finish with France, with 
England, with Russia, not realizing that you can 



104 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

never finish with peoples that you can neither wipe 
out nor assimilate. Relying on the heterogeneous 
assemblage of enemy races which the scepter at 
Vienna has never been able to keep in subjection, 
the Kaiser aspires to hurl together the two halves 
of Europe, that he may set up his bloody throne 
upon the loftiest heap of ruins that the wretched- 
ness of man will ever have contemplated. 

He has chosen his hour and has thrown his 
obedient ally against a defenseless little Slavic 
people, through whom it is his desire to cut Eussia 
to the quick in her dignity of race and her tra- 
ditions of Slavic solidarity. Let her ignore the 
outstretched hand of Serbia and her authority, 
her historical traditions, her hopes most deeply 
anchored in the hearts of the highest and the low- 
est — all will collapse in a day, and the Balkanic 
nations, those mixtures of Orient and Occident, 
which form the bridge between Europe and Asia, 
will fall into the lap of the German Emperor, who 
is ready to turn against the older civilizations, 
from which even his own power is derived, the 
young peoples who have placed their hopes for 
the future in the country of the French Revolu- 
tion. 

Serbia, brutally summoned to surrender, has 
abandoned everything that is hers, even to the 
point of submitting to the arbitration of her right 
to existence, and yet this has not disarmed the in- 
satiable autocrat. Because a faint appeal to law 
still made itself heard, the Teuton, who wished to 
reduce the Slav to helpless prostration, has an- 
swered by an appeal to the force of arms. And 
yet Wilhelm II notified us that if we dared to allow 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 105 

ourselves to appeal to justice, his sword would be 
raised against us. Later, London and St. Peters- 
burg received the same warning. So be it. Such 
a series of aggressive machinations is without pre- 
cedent. 

But of what use is it to exclaim? In an un- 
believably short space of time, under the exi- 
gencies of circumstances which we cannot escape, 
we are placed under the necessity of forming a 
resolution which, be it yes or no, is going to sub- 
ject our country's very existence to unknown 
vicissitudes. Eussia has the choice of suicide or 
resistance. Our case is not different. With a skil- 
ful arrangement of dates, at most, with Austria 
and France successively vanquished — Austria 
doubly vanquished, for the worst defeat is sub- 
jection — Germany is condemned by the irrevo- 
cable law which was the ruin of Napoleon to covet 
perpetual aggrandizement. Eussia 's turn has 
come, and if Eussia alone had to be driven back 
it would only be a question of choosing the time 
to make an end of France. Finally, the hour would 
strike for England, who, having no continental 
army, would find herself reduced to submitting, 
at the hands of the German Emperor, to what she 
would not accept from Napoleon. 

The moment which we shall not be accused of 
having sought is therefore decisive for all Europe. 
For the same question is placed before every peo- 
ple, even before those who struggle against them- 
selves while fighting us : submission or independ- 
ence. It is not enough that we should lament. 
If we are really the men whom we pretend to be, 
the hour has come to show it. 



106 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

Is the struggle equal? Serbia did not ask that 
question when she bravely held to her ultimate 
right of independent existence. We have more 
freedom of deliberation. We possess, also, an as- 
semblage of forces and martial inspiration with 
which it seems to me this madness of the enemy 
has not sufficiently reckoned. In spite of negli- 
gence, and in this respect England and Russia 
have been almost as lax as we, we can put upon 
the field of battle a considerable aggregation of 
forces. Germany has the superiority of a train- 
ing which no mishap can disturb. In every way 
in which ceaseless preparation can avail she has 
the advantage over us. But if we showed her in 
1870 what we could do when we were taken by the 
throat, stripped of all means of defense, we can 
make her see, this time, what we are capable of 
doing when fortune has not disarmed us before- 
hand. It is but just that our thought should go 
back to Gambetta. He saw, he made, the days 
when victors were' all but ready to hesitate, at the 
moment when the terrible destitution of our 
armies seemed to deliver them to the enemy. 
These victors have forgotten that, to remember 
only the surprises of Sedan and Metz, which will 
not occur again because misfortune has made for 
us, not a new soul, but new powers of will. 

Look at this smiling and gentle people, in our 
streets, in our fields, seeming scarcely disturbed 
in the routine of their work by their preoccupa- 
tion, as they leave, of assuring the comfort of 
their homes, of which their country is to receive 
the charge. They push forward in their task with 
a new energy, ready to give themselves entirely 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 107 

for the glorious legacy of a supreme sacrifice to 
those who will learn from them that there are, in 
the depths of the human soul, things more price- 
less than life. A farmer's boy whom I met the 
other day said to me in passing, "We must hurry 
up, the women will finish the harvest," and he 
laughed at the idea of the spectacle. That was 
all. In Paris, not a cry, not a sign of disturbance 
in the crowd. Nothing but the gravity of a deter- 
mination. 

Yesterday a miserable fool assassinated Jaures 
at the moment when he was rendering, with a mag- 
nificent energy, a double service to his country by 
persisting in the effort to assure the maintenance 
of peace and by calling all the French proletariat 
to the defense of the land. Whatever opinion we 
may have of his doctrines, no one would be willing 
to deny, at this hour when all dissension should 
hold silence, that he has honored his country by 
his talents, devoted to the service of a high ideal, 
and by the noble elevation of his views. The pre- 
mier, moved by a generous inspiration for which 
all good citizens will be thankful to him, has gra- 
ciously rendered homage, in the name of France 
herself, to the great figure who has disappeared. 

The fate of Jaures was to preach the brother- 
hood of peoples, and to have so firm a faith in 
this great idea that he could not be discouraged 
even by the brutal evidence of facts. He falls 
at the very hour when his idealism found it neces- 
sary to descend from the serene heights of thought 
to call all his friends to the combat for his coun- 
try, which was at the same time a combat for an 
idea. A great power is taken away from us, at 



108 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

the moment when he was preparing for supreme 
efforts from which the French cause would have 
benefited splendidly. Let us close the ranks, we 
who are left, of all the parties, and if peace shall 
ever bring back the hour for honor due, let us not 
fail to repay, in social justice, the devotion of 
those who took for their sublime aim the great 
reconciliation of humanity. 

A dream from which the cannon of Wilhelm, 
in a moment, are going to awaken us. 

August 2, 1914. 

The State of Wae 

Let us now lift up our hearts, and take care 
that materially by our labor, and morally by our 
civic virtue, the non-combatants may vigorously 
second the men who face the enemy. All those 
who have a part, great or little, in the work of 
furnishing necessities, be it in producing food or 
equipment or arms, will be possessed with the idea 
that their efforts are not less necessary than those 
of the soldiers of the line, and will spare nothing, 
nothing, that they may do more than will be asked 
of them. 

As for aid to the Eed Cross, we know well that 
our brave women will be worthy of those whom 
they have given to their country. I saw some of 
them yesterday, animated by the most noble ardor. 
They have better things to do than to weep for 
those who depart. They are going to follow. 
Many of them are already at their post near the 
battle. As for us, civilians, who serve in the ex- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 109 

treme rear, we shall not fail to furnish them 
abundantly with all that can be asked of us. In 
this also there is not one of us who cannot lend 
his aid to all those who, in whatever service, are 
at the frontiers to offer themselves against the 
first onrush of the invader. 

This first onrush will be violent, for the forces 
of the enemy have been able to assemble in num- 
ber, in very great number, even before the mobili- 
zation had been openly decreed. During this time, 
doubtless, we have been able considerably to rein- 
force our units, in order to avoid every surprise. 
But it was of the highest importance that we 
should not, in the eyes of Europe, seem the ag- 
gressors, and while Germany was effecting her 
mobilization before announcing it, thanks to her 
decree on the state of war, the French govern- 
ment, justly considering the consequences, was 
proceeding with all the necessary precautions in 
order that no one might be able untruthfully to 
attribute to her an aggressive initiative. 

To-day the evidence is overwhelming. We have 
said nothing, demanded nothing, done nothing 
touching Germany, and already our frontier has 
been forced. Although there is still no declara- 
tion of war, although the German ambassador is 
still at Paris, armed troops have penetrated to our 
soil, torn up our rails, stopped trains which ran 
under the protection of treaties, stolen the locomo- 
tives, and accomplished such depredations as are 
their ordinary pleasure. Worse still, they are now 
violating the neutrality of Luxembourg, guaran- 
teed, in company with all the great powers of 
Europe, by Prussia herself. They are passing the 



110 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

frontier, on the way to Longwy and Nancy. In 
the meanwhile Austria is accepting Sir Edward 
Grey's proposal of mediation, and the ambassador 
of Franz-Joseph, like the German ambassador, re- 
mains at Paris to demonstrate that war has not 
been declared. We must expect anything from 
these people. 

If they have, as is possible, the temporary ad- 
vantage of aggression over us, for the reason 
which I have just explained, we must suppose that 
they have concentrated themselves to strike us a 
great blow at the point which Ihey judge to be 
weakest. This supposition may not dismay us. 
In war the advantage of numbers is found in turn 
on one side and then on the other. We cannot 
hope to resist victoriously at all points at once. 
Enthusiasm in the forward march, stubborn reso- 
lution when we have to give ground for the mo- 
ment, these are the two qualities that determine 
the final victory, and it is on the final victory that 
the very life of our country depends. 

It is to this sole end that we should strain all 
our efforts in unison, those who are in the battle 
and those of us as well who owe to them the best 
organization of the national resources from which 
they will need incessantly to draw. To provide 
material resources everyone will offer himself 
with all good will. But we must let ourselves be 
possessed with the idea that the moral resources 
are not of slighter weight in the scales of war, 
since there is no greater aid to the soldier than to 
feel himself sustained by the unanimity of his 
country. It has been said that the vanquished 
man is he whose morale the enemy can influence 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 111 

sufficiently to put him in a state of mind which 
makes him look upon his defeat as certain. In 
other words, one is not beaten until he thinks he 
is beaten. In that case our state to-day is that of 
a people who cannot he beaten, for another treaty 
of Frankfort would be incompatible with the self- 
respect of France. 

At the Assembly of Bordeaux it was Chanzy 
who, from the moral point of view, was right in re- 
fusing to treat with the enemy because the enemy 
could not really occupy the whole country and 
resistance, even in forlorn hope, if it was resolute, 
would have brought about his exhaustion. But 
Thiers naturally gained a general assent when he 
showed how the country, stripped of resources, 
was in a state of depression which a ghastly series 
of catastrophes explained only too well. To-day, 
with the aid of England, we cannot lack resources 
of any kind. On the contrary, it is the enemy, cut 
off from the ocean, who will find himself grappling 
with problems of provisioning which he will have 
some trouble in solving. Neither equipment nor 
armament can fail us, and certainly we shall not 
fail ourselves. Well, if our morale is as high as 
our circumstances warrant, we cannot be defeated. 
Even admitting that certain parts of the Russian 
organization may show defects, the Eussian army 
itself, fighting adversaries than whom there are 
none more redoubtable, has given examples of 
heroism before which the present enemy herself 
has bowed. And now behold, in a sudden surprise, 
there issues out of Japan, for the ear of England 
and consequently of France and Russia, a cry of 
unexpected aid which notifies us that the highest 



112 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

civilization of Asia is moved at the thought of 
the civilization of Europe under the heel of a con- 
queror without heart and without faith. 

In these conditions, in order that our full self- 
control may be revealed in its irresistible force 
to our friends and allies and to our enemies, also, 
that they may learn who is confronting them, it 
is necessary that all the moral energy of our 
civilian population — from Paris to the smallest 
village — declare itself proudly by that quiet disci- 
pline which it is our first duty to impose upon our- 
selves. Every enemy of the public order is an 
enemy of the country. When France is invaded 
there is no longer any room for doubtful hearts. 
This is no longer the hour for dreams which might 
excuse brave people. As for those who attempt 
to raise discord among us, even if it cannot be 
established that they are agents of the foreigner, 
good Frenchmen will not be able to see in them 
anything but public enemies who ought to be 
legally deprived of their power to injure the en- 
dangered country. 

The capital should be policed. That is elemen- 
tary prudence. But each citizen, even the most 
humble, can be of service if he aids in the main- 
tenance of civil peace by giving a good example 
of it himself and by recommending it to others. 
Remember that if order could be maintained auto- 
matically, all the agents of public security could 
be at the front. It is for us so to conduct our- 
selves that only the smallest number will be held 
back. And let us have no useless recriminations ! 
No manifestations, always dangerous. No at- 
tempts to substitute the street for the government. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 113 

The present cabinet was not made with a view 
to the events which have come. No one has a right 
to doubt that it will be animated by the single 
desire to dedicate itself entirely to its duty. To 
the stoicism of the populace — in the test of re- 
verses — our ministers must respond by a self- 
sacrifice and a devotion which, if they were less 
than complete, would be equivalent to treason. 
They recommend to us in a manifesto i i not to let 
ourselves be carried away by ill-founded pas- 
sions." Their thought is one of excellent good 
sense. Even if the emotion of the country is but 
too well founded, what we must ask of Frenchmen 
at a time like this is not to allow any more of it 
to escape than is necessary to strengthen the reso- 
lution of each one and to increase the confidence 
of all in final success. 

We are in a very honeymoon, so far as concerns 
the agreement of the executive power with popu- 
lar sentiment. As in every war, there will be dark 
days. In order to surmount the inevitable dis- 
agreements a moral authority is necessary to sup- 
plement the authority of the law. It is for those 
of the government to gain this authority in the 
trial. The good will of everyone is at their dis- 
position. It is for them to employ it. There is 
no one who does not ask that he may offer them 
his assistance without other thought than to bring 
together all Frenchmen in one burst of enthusiasm 
for the material and moral good of the country, 
on the soil which our ancestors made their own by 
grand exploits of nobility. 

August 3, 1914. 



114 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Before the Signal 

What we are seeing to-day has never been seen 
before. The German armies are marching from 
every direction upon our frontiers. Enemy troops 
are spread along the boundary line, while our 
own are wisely kept back at a distance of ten 
kilometers in order that action may not be en- 
gaged, on our side, until after the act of German 
aggression can no longer be contested. To pro- 
voke us, small detachments penetrate our terri- 
tory, throw down telegraph poles, tear up rails, 
seize railway supplies and horses, take away 
conscripts, kill soldiers, advance more than ten 
kilometers into the country, offer violence to the 
inhabitants, commit all the acts customary among 
highway robbers in the hope that we will reply 
by opening a military action, which would permit 
them to attribute to us, untruthfully, the role of 
aggressors. 

We shall never realize all the vile hypocrisy 
which can ally itself with the savage brutality of 
these beasts of prey. The manifesto of Wilhelm 
II, in this respect, is the shame of shames. In all 
of his organs, through all of his agents, even 
through French journalists, he has had it pro- 
claimed to us that he did not desire war, although 
no one could ever wring out of him a word or an 
act in favor of peace. Yesterday his ambassador 
at Paris, who could not attempt to explain why 
he remains at his post while the armies of his 
master are making war upon us, said to one of my 
friends, "Be sure to repeat to everybody that 
we do not want war. Unfortunately, we do not 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 115 

know the desires of Austria, to whom we are 
bound to remain inseparably attached, as you are 
to Eussia. But we do not want war and we will 
do all that is possible to avoid it." 

What facts answered these words? The dec- 
laration of war on Russia, because she had taken 
the liberty to respond by a mobilization on the 
other side of the line — the declaration of war on 
Russia at the moment when Austria is accepting 
Sir Edward Grey's proposal of mediation, that is 
to say, at the precise moment when the conflict 
was disappearing which had been given as the 
cause for preparations for war. Where is the 
disturber of the peace ? Where is the aggressor? 
Who, indeed, would dare to discuss the question 
seriously? The Kaiser is declaring war on Russia 
and he is violating the neutrality of Luxembourg 
and Belgium, to march against us. 

And yet his ambassadors at St. Petersburg and 
at Paris remain at their posts to impose upon the 
powers and to make them believe that the final 
rupture is not accomplished. The simplest laws 
of honor brand these deceptions. These inferior 
creatures find in them material only for low pur- 
poses of rude pleasure or for invocations to the 
god of brigandage in armed troops. 

So it is that Wilhelm II addresses his people 
and tells them that ''envious persons" force him 
"to a just defense" and that he will show his 
enemies what it is to " provoke Germany. ' ' From 
another person such impudence would appear that 
of a madman, since it would be impossible to cite 
either an act of provocation or a word which 
could inspire in anyone the idea of putting him- 



116 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

self in defense. But from a robber chief who 
wants to throw his hordes upon France, as their 
ancestors hurled themselves upon Rome for 
grandiose enterprises of pillage, crowned with a 
stupid joy of murderous domination, it is only 
the Teutonic formula of an enterprise of war, in 
which are whetted all the appetites of a pious 
savagery which goes so far as to take the God 
of the gospels as an accomplice in the greatest 
crime of history against humanity. For he recom- 
mends to his men to enter into the churches to 
obtain from the God of love abundant pillage 
for the return. When one has a conscience fabri- 
cated in such a way that a thought like this 
cannot revolt him, we may expect anything from 
his inhumanity. 

The state of things created by the treaty of 
Frankfort could endure no longer as soon as Bis- 
marck, and after him Wilhelm II, showed that 
they would only make it an instrument of hege- 
mony by which they have condemned Europe, 
under the menace of their cannon, to the policy of 
superarmaments. The day on which Germany has 
brought us, by premeditated purpose, to the 
supreme crisis, has come sooner than I expected, 
but it has come. When I used to prophesy it, 
when I used to oppose the foolish waste of men 
and money in enterprises of colonial vanity, I 
was often told that I was deceiving myself about 
the German peril. It is not long ago that this was 
repeated to me in regard to the treaty with Ger- 
many about Morocco, against which I was almost 
alone in voting. I have no desire for recrimina- 
tion, but when I was told, as late as yesterday, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 117 

that certain of our most famous public men were 
persisting in declaring that Germany would not 
make war on us, I could not restrain a feeling of 
sadness at the thought of what systematic short- 
sightedness had too often governed us. But at 
this hour we must forget, in order to assemble 
in support of the government and stand beside it 
facing the invader. 

In the enormous game now beginning it is not 
France only, any more than Eussia alone, or 
England, that must be considered. No, it is the 
destiny of all European civilization on which the 
fortune of battle is going to pronounce the main- 
tenance of a fine diversity of culture among in- 
dependent peoples, or the execrable attempt at a 
mechanical unity of Teutonization under the iron 
heel. Thus our cause has become that of all the 
nations, of all the governments who do not 
separate the sentiment of national honor from the 
conception of a common life according to the main 
lines of the tradition of nationality. 

Many will be silent, will attempt to conceal the 
trembling of their hearts at the thought that they 
are looking on, with folded arms, while the 
soldiers of France fall on the fields of battle where 
is at stake, along with the life of the French 
nation, that also of little peoples whose hearts 
are feeble enough to consent to succumb without 
fighting. And we who send our sons to the bloody 
conflict, we who are treacherously menaced at 
the deepest roots of our life, we are resolved to 
save all that can be saved of our splendid con- 
tributions to civilization, to which it is our high- 
est ambition to add continually. 



118 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

In defending ourselves we are championing the 
cause of all. If in the past we have committed 
sins against Europe, misfortunes enough have 
made us cruelly expiate them. And we present 
ourselves at the side of England, she who, also, 
in the age of iron, conceived the ambition to 
dominate us. A hundred years of war were nec- 
essary for us to gain the independence of our 
land, and when the men had been defeated it was 
a woman, a poor Lorraine peasant, simple- 
hearted but grand in her simplicity, who spoke 
the words and did the things whence came the 
victory. England launched forth for the economic 
conquest of the world, and has erected by her 
labor, by her daring, and by a perseverance 
which nothing could impair, an immense empire 
which forms her just pride and which is indeed 
the pride of civilization. To-day she has nobly 
drawn her sword, for the honor, in freedom, of 
the peoples of Europe. She enters with us into 
the noble drama, an enemy of the overlordship 
of Napoleon or of Bismarck, a friend of ,the 
modern France, who asks nothing of Europe but 
an equilibrium in freedom. Italy remains neutral, 
and I do not believe it hazardous to predict that 
this grand spectacle will soon shed a bright light 
upon the mind of the Italian people, whom short- 
sighted governments had foolishly engaged in the 
service of Teutonism against all that remains of 
Latin tradition. 

And finally, behold Eussia arriving first upon 
the battle-line, the Russia who, even yesterday, ap- 
peared to be the last asylum in Europe of Asiatic 
despotism, the Russia who, on the initiative of her 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 119 

latest Czars, has made place for freedom, the 
Russia whom an incomparable intellectual move- 
ment has already placed in the first rank of 
civilized culture, Eussia, the magnificent bridge 
of idealism and determination over which move- 
ments born in Asia will bring to us, with a renewal 
of strength, new forms of inspiration. It is just 
this which the feudal Germans fear, as they 
hold the people under the oppression of their 
bureaucracy and look askance at nothing so much 
as a change of mental discipline which might 
destroy the great basis of their government — 
obedience. Thus, even to the German soldiers, 
in spite of themselves, Russia and France and 
England will bring intellectual deliverance. 

Our fathers, before 1870, had met the German 
soldiers on many fields of battle where fortune 
was often enough unfavorable to the German side. 
To-morrow the great account-books will once 
more open; we shall have to resist, perhaps, a 
colossal onrush upon all the fronts at once. The 
shock will be terrible. The men of Germany will 
be received as they should be by the soldiers of 
France. 

August 4, 1914. 

We Must Win 

Wilhelm II has willed it. The cannon must 
speak. The German ambassador has decided to 
depart, tired of waiting in Paris for acts of 
violence which do not occur. Do you know the 
official reasons for his departure? It is that a 
French aviator is alleged to have thrown bombs 



120 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

on Nuremberg. In courteous language M. Viviani 
replied that this was an untruth, although it was 
only too true that a German troop had come into 
our territory and killed a French soldier; and 
the ambassador, finding nothing to say, slipped 
away only to return a few minutes later to repair 
a slight omission. He had forgotten to deliver 
to the minister a declaration of war. One cannot 
think of everything at once. 

. . . England, be it said to her honor, did not 
hesitate. Germany has had many friends, even 
in important places, in the British government, 
and she has not recoiled before any method of 
impressing public opinion in the United Kingdom. 
Nevertheless, the statesmen of England, and the 
English people themselves, have too clear a vision 
of their own interests, coinciding at every point 
with those of European civilization, for them to 
entertain the thought of taking miserable refuge 
in a waiting policy. This whole nation is com- 
posed of men who possess peculiarly that superior 
quality of knowing their own wills and of acting 
when once they have spoken. They do not give 
themselves up to enthusiasms, as sometimes hap- 
pens to us, but they advance carefully step by 
step and they are easier to kill than to drive back. 
Moreover it was impossible for them to do, in so 
little time, more than they have done in the time 
since all dissimulation disappeared from Ger- 
many's intentions. 

With a prudence for which no one can reproach 
them they painfully exhausted the last chances 
of peace, without ever letting themselves be en- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 121 

trapped by the fallacious proposals of the German 
ambassador. They carefully guarded their liberty 
of action in case of developments of which no 
one can calculate the consequences. But Germany 
has not left them the chance to preserve this 
liberty long, and they have quickly shown that 
their decision, once it was necessary, would not 
be delayed. 

. . . Italy has issued her formal declaration of 
neutrality. By the way in which French opinion 
received it, our brothers beyond Piedmont can 
see that the absurd quarrels of governments in- 
sufficiently authoritative have left no trace in our 
hearts. They had often told us that the Triple 
Alliance could not act together, in whatever con- 
cerned the Italians, unless we were the aggressors, 
and that they refused to believe that such would 
ever be the case, since our policy was wholly 
defensive. They have shown that they were 
wholly sincere. We cannot but be thankful to 
them for it. 

It is for the Latin cause, for the independence 
of nationalities in Europe, that we are going to 
fight, for the greatest ideas that have honored the 
thought of mankind, ideas that have come to us 
from Athens and Borne and of which we have 
made the crowning work of that civilization which 
the Germany of Arminius pretends to monopolize, 
like those barbarians who melted into ingots the 
marvels of ancient art after the pillaging of Eome 
in order to make savage ornaments out of them. 

Anticipating the time which possibly is near, 
I proclaim to the men who have revived Italy and 



122 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

who have had the glory to bring Rome back to 
her destiny that they have themselves marked out 
their place in this great struggle. I am not afraid 
to say that, without them, we shall conquer, be- 
cause we are resolved to dare and endure any- 
thing, because a peace resulting from our defeat 
could not be made except over the corpses of all 
the men worthy of the name of France. But what 
supreme joy would overflow our hearts if the 
name of the great Italy of history should be asso- 
ciated with ours in a heroic adventure in which 
the greatest men of Rome would have been proud 
to claim an important part. Whenever their sons 
wish it we shall be able to make a place of honor 
for them at our side. Behold Belgium in action, 
Holland with arms in hand, Russia pregnant with 
new purpose to revive our fatigued hopes, the 
peoples of the Balkans being born anew, the 
American republics, with the greatest in the lead, 
incapable by tradition of seconding a brutal at- 
tack upon liberty, all Europe indignant at mon- 
strous treachery, and even Asia, in astonishment, 
speaking of lending her redoubtable legions to 
the cause. 

Against what is this revolt of all, this rebellion 
of human conscience, this insurrection of ideas? 
Against a Teutonism delirious in megalomania, 
ambitious to realize what Alexander, Caesar, 
Napoleon could not accomplish: to impose upon 
a world that desires to be free the supremacy of 
steel. It is not a thing for our age; men have 
too much suffered from it. The modern idea is 
the right of all, and victory for us could not mean 
oppression, even for those who fought against us, 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 123 

since Germany has valiantly conquered, like so 
many other states, her rightful place in the world, 
and since, if we are fighting the arrogance of 
tyranny, it is not in order to embrace it in our 
turn. 

And now to arms, all of us ! I have seen weep- 
ing among those who cannot go first. Everyone 's 
turn will come. There will not be a child of 
our land who will not have a part in the enormous 
struggle. To die is nothing. We must win. And 
for that we need all men's power. The weakest 
will have his share of glory. There come times, 
in the lives of peoples, when there passes over 
them a tempest of heroic action. 

August 5, 1914. 

The Two Flags 

A whole people stands erect. From the depths 
of its traditional life, of its sensations, of its 
thoughts, all the manifestations of its being, there 
springs up a common power to will and to do 
which nothing can overcome. They have had 
faults which were not slight. They would not 
have conquered, by their enthusiastic idealism, by 
their self-sacrifice in the service of grand ideas 
for the betterment of men, one of the highest 
positions of the world, unless they had risen, by 
higher and higher bounds, above their periods of 
weakness in which the representatives of human 
baseness had saluted the precursory signs of their 
decadence. 

A whole people stands erect, and it is the 
French people, against whom all the invasions of 



124 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

hostile peoples have "been hurled only to be ab- 
sorbed for the creation of a race, vigorous and 
productive, which is the execration of men who 
do not live nobly enough to understand it, and 
the hope of those who dream of increasing human 
grandeur. By its faults, and sometimes also by 
movements not always wisely controlled but still 
praiseworthy, this people has made itself many 
enemies in the world. Having called men to de- 
liverance before being itself capable of freedom, 
it abandoned itself under an iron will to the giddy 
dream of domination — survival of those notions 
of the past which were beginning to succumb 
under its blows — and this error, redeemed by so 
much native heroism and conquering generosity, 
it has dearly paid for, without ever forfeiting its 
own esteem, without ever permitting a blot to 
remain upon its name. What is still more, it has 
paid for the unpardonable folly of the irrespon- 
sible government of a daj with a part of its living 
flesh cut off by the saber of the conqueror. 

It has borne its misfortune nobly. During 
forty years it has kept silence while from the 
crests of the Vosges there came the groans of 
its mutilated land, during forty years it has re- 
pressed the but too lively beatings of its heart, 
during forty years it has created for itself, by 
hard toil, a new right to life, and by painful 
patience a new right to honor. It has submitted 
to every insult, to every provocation, with its 
head high, without quailing. Like old swords of 
an unalterable temper in which the hammer of the 
forge reawakens a disdained virtue, it has laid its 
soul upon the anvil for the tests which destiny 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 125 

announced, and behold, at the day appointed, the 
new man arises in the pure simplicity of grand 
resolution. 

Out of the obscure strife of parties the French- 
man of this hour has leaped forward incorrupt, 
greater and stronger, silent, smiling, with an eye 
charged with invincible energy which proclaims 
that the history of France shall not come to an 
end. Women have seen him depart and have not 
wept. Little children have grown grave. Youth 
anticipates its call, and those whose age betrays 
them will find a way to reach the post of danger. 
It is the mysterious hour when something is pass- 
ing within us which casts away all dross to make 
room for the great molding of metal which 
neither steel nor diamond can cut. And on the 
day when, after superhuman trials, all these souls, 
weary of heroism, shall meet again under the 
great blue vault of a reborn country, many hearts 
that were inimical to us must become friendly 
to the France in which the elements of dissension, 
which are in the nature of life, will be gathered 
together, firmly anchored in a fundamental una- 
nimity so strong that nothing can shake it. A more 
glorious country shall come out of the crucible. 

The same news from every point in the country. 
Everywhere the mobilization is taking place in 
admirable order, on which we congratulate the 
minister of war and especially General Joff re, who 
prepared it. There comes to us from this strong 
organization, so perfect in its method, a comfort 
for to-day, a hope for to-morrow. Blessed are the 
dissensions of the past if they have done nothing 
but arouse in us a more lively emulation for the 



126 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

great cause which must render us superior to our- 
selves. 

But if the administration of the system is good, 
what of the individuals? What heart, at sight 
of our youths so simple in their heroism, does not 
leap up before these noble makers of history? 
All the representatives of France, momentarily 
united yesterday, had but one voice. Happy in 
their pride, to give them their due honor, and 
with smiles like children: these are the sons that 
we dedicate to our country. Yesterday, meeting 
a troop of them, I could not restrain myself from 
silently removing my hat. And I had the honor 
of a fine military salute, without a word, without 
a gesture of French gaiety, a salute that spoke— 
* 'forward!" 

The soldiers of the year II, those of whom 
. . . Fame chantait dans leurs clairons d'arain," 
were not finer, were not grander. A sublime folly 
possessed them. These of to-day, mute and 
gentle, are imposing. How has it been communi- 
cated from one end of France to the other, this 
spontaneous inspiration which has suddenly 
steeled all these young souls in the simplicity of 
duty? How have they all come to know at once 
that there was nothing more to say, since the hour 
was one for action? Men of Brittany, of Gironde, 
of Gascony, of Provence, of Auvergne, of Nor- 
mandy, of Savoy, of Flanders with one motion 
came together, all welded into one, with a high 
gesture which would express a thought and a 
will beyond the reach of human power. There 
is nothing more beautiful in our history, nor in 
that of any people. Simplicity in heroism has 



a 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 127 

usually been the rare privilege of the few. To- 
day it is the miraculous gift of a whole people, 
ready to offer their life that France may live. 
Hail, noble children! Pass on your way in a 
train of glory! Die, and you will have lived what 
is highest in life; live and you will uplift your 
land, whom it is your dream to make more 
beautiful than the France of your ancestors! 

A nation is a soul, a soul of varied flowering, 
springing from one aged trunk twisted by the 
ages, embossed by the scars of steel, with bare 
roots that plunge, in search of life into the night of 
things. Men have tried to annihilate peoples by 
systematic massacre, to sell them like herds of 
beasts, men have dismembered them, torn them 
in pieces, rent them asunder, dispersed them, 
buried them. As long as men have not extirpated 
every source of life there will be a sprig shooting 
from the ground, and then a crop of others to 
testify that above the savage will of individuals 
there are forces in mankind which do not accept 
death. 

In truth we are of those who will not and can- 
not disappear, because we carry in the harmony 
or the discord of the world a note of thought and 
of action which has been and still is of consider- 
able value to mankind. We should all have to 
be annihilated before some sprout of the French 
soul, revivified by the blood of the dead, should 
fail to rise again from the ancient soil. That is 
what is in the depths of consciences from which 
men draw their firmness, valor, and hope in the 
hour when they go to stand immovable under 
the hostile hail of shot. 



128 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

They have a cause to defend, a cause which 
ennobles them and for which no sacrifice is too 
great. What could our prisoners of war say if 
we asked them why they went into combat? 
What thought inspires them? 

Who is hurling them against us? After the 
conclusion of peace, in 1871, I went to Strassburg 
with Scheurer-Kestner. When I arrived at the 
house of my friend, Louis Durr, the good citizen 
of Strassburg who could not hear the name of 
German without shivering, I found him rudely 
haranguing one of the soldiers of Wilhelm to 
whom, against his will, he was giving lodgment. 
"Yes, it is you," he was saying, "who are the 
authors of this wretched work. You have come 
here among us where you are not wanted. You 
want to live among us. You will not be able to 
do it, for we cannot endure it. What have you 
come to do in Alsace? Say why you are here!" 
All of them listened, stupidly, and one of them 
pitifully murmured: "It is not my fault. I did 
nothing but obey." 

Durr, who was afraid of nothing, was running 
the risk of being shot, but he had forced upon the 
enemy the acknowledgment that he was nothing 
but a machine of murder, without conscience. If 
he were still in the world and could repeat the 
question, how much more decisive would be the 
manifestation on both sides. At that time it was 
but a question of dismembering France. Now the 
design is to assassinate her! 

What do you say of it, soldiers of Germany, 
who came upon our territory, without having any 
complaint against us, to accomplish this high act 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 129 

of civilization? Tell us, I beg of you, what wrong 
we can have done to yon, beyond living reproach 
which the people of Alsace and Lorraine cast npon 
yon, throngh the single fact that they are on the 
earth by the same title that yon enjoy. Yon, 
the philosophers, who classify all yonr notions 
of the world in hard and fast categories ; yon, the 
scholars, who desire laborious methods to pene- 
trate into the night of the unknown; you, the men 
of affairs, who can make and unmake the ma- 
chinery of things ; you, artists of ideals with wings 
of lead; you, the social democrats who want 
justice among men: come into full session, all of 
you, and tell us, if you can find it, the name of 
your cause against us. You do not fight for your 
fatherland. We have endured all your outrages, 
all your aggressiveness for forty-four years with- 
out attacking you. You are not even defending 
your ally Austria, since up to this hour she is 
still not at war with us, and since she was ac- 
cepting the mediation of England on the very day 
when you declared war on Russia. Try to search 
out an honorable pretext, a decent lie which may 
give an illusion to the most obtuse minds, and you 
are in such a parlous state that you cannot find 
one. That is the judgment of a people, in very 
truth. You are fighting to obey, and not to be 
free. 

Also behold how from every side assistance is 
coming to us in arms and sympathies! England 
is rising against you, Italy will not follow you. 
You menace Holland and Switzerland, you out- 
rage Belgium, because the map of the world 
would be more beautiful in your eyes if you could 



130 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

swell yourselves with the domains of others, like 
the gamester who, even when he has won a good 
prize, tries to appropriate the stakes of those near 
him. That has a name in the French language, 
and even in yonrs, but you would not dare to 
inscribe it on your banners. History will have 
less scruple, and when your fighters, who are 
doubtful in their darkened conscience, of the jus- 
tice of their cause, shall feel their courage weak- 
ening at the idea of dying for the achievement 
of designs which you dare not formulate, the 
banners will tremble in their hands, while ours 
will rule the battle, calling all hearts to sublime 
sacrifice for the soul and body of their nation. 

August 6, 1914. 

Fkom the Othee Side 

... It is a great day which is dawning, one of 
the greatest which can inspire mankind, for we 
are to see what the force of human conscience 
can avail against those who glory in outraging it. 
It is the most evident sign of progress in human 
society that the right of men and of peoples is 
beginning to draw the fire, against which, con- 
trary to what we have seen in the past, it must 
defend itself. Yes, force of arms is going to clash 
with force of arms, but on one side there will be 
the highest moral power, and on the other only 
the lowest shamelessness of brutality. 

The victory will be decided on the field of 
battle, not only by the number of artillery pieces 
or the sum of men engaged, but by the weight, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 131 

above all, of the sentiments which have put arms 
into the hands of the combatants. One man is not 
equal to another, selected at random. There is 
in each one an individual soul, of strength or 
weakness, with the expansion of energy that 
derives therefrom. The strength is in the con- 
sciousness of a superior nobility; the weak- 
ness, in the unworthiness of the sentiments 
which have led the man into battle. That is why 
we are strong, we Belgians, we French, we Rus- 
sians, we Britons. That is why, Germans, we 
know that Destiny has already pronounced the 
supreme verdict against you. 

. . . Even if you are to drive us back, on cer- 
tain days, the higher laws, which for our honor, 
govern human history, decree that we shall repel 
you, by an accumulation of irresistible efforts, 
beyond your frontiers and bring you to bay. You 
despised the Belgians, and they have held you in 
check, in your first onrush, while your cruel losses 
tell you clearly enough against what arms and 
hearts you have hurled yourselves. The Mexico 
of Maximilian of Austria, the Spain of Napoleon 
have shown what men can do when they fear 
nothing but that they may not do enough for the 
defense of their country. The Belgians are add- 
ing a new page to this noble history and all of 
them know well that they will not be abandoned. 

So far as concerns us, I am going to tell you 
where you have erred, men of Germany. You 
have childishly thought to honor yourselves by 
humbling us in the sight of Europe. You have 
basely slandered us, outraged us, vilified us, 



132 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

taunted us, and because we remained calm under 
provocation, you have foolishly concluded that our 
hearts are weak. And because in our great un- 
dertaking of the construction of a democracy in 
justice and freedom we have too often calum- 
niated one another, you have thought, in your 
native stupidity, that our dissensions would 
cause weakness in our resistance. And you have 
been the first dupes of your own lies, of your 
infamous calumnies against the French nation. 
Since you once succeeded in surprising us, you 
said that we had degenerated from our ancestors, 
who so many times had hurled you back on the 
field of battle, and having said it you believed it, 
and perhaps to-day you are still waiting for the 
sword to fail in our hands. I should be mortally 
ashamed to pronounce, at this hour, a word of 
boasting. You will soon be able to judge us in 
the test. 

Meantime I behold you held in check by the 
Belgian army, before reaching us in the north; 
I see Austria ridiculously arrested before the open 
city of Belgrade, while 500,000 Serbs, who have 
forced the admiration of their Balkan allies, will 
let the world hear of them before long; to say 
nothing of England, whose cannon will not be 
delayed. Send us some of your parliamentarians 
and let us uncover their eyes at the door of our 
recruiting offices. They will see our most fero- 
cious socialists there demanding their place in 
the battle, they will see long lines of men of every 
age and every country, who are come to take 
service in order to rid the world of the oppressive 
power that has held Europe, for more than half 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 133 

a century, under the menace of its armaments. 
They will see monks there; yes, monks that we 
chased out of the country, as they say, with some 
exaggeration. And this act of simple nobility, 
and the oppressing memory of the poor village 
priest whose cassock you rifled with your bullets, 
and the two children whom you shot at Morfon- 
taine, and the non-commissioned French officer, 
wounded, whom you dispatched in your coward- 
ice, all that is welding more firmly together the 
hearts that you thought divided. We are con- 
strained to adjourn all engagements until the 
mobilization is completed, and our men are in 
despair because they cannot yet depart. All of 
independent Europe is on our side. Who is with 
you? Whose sympathy remains to you except 
that of Austria, expelled from the German con- 
federacy and subjected after Sadowa? The birth- 
rate of the French has decreased? We shall have 
too many soldiers. I was mistaken, really, in 
inviting you to come and see them leaving; you 
will meet them on your arrival. 

August 7, 1914. 

A State of Mind 

It is revolting to think that these barbarous 
acts of the Germans, which leave an eternal 
stain on their name, are accomplished according 
to a premeditated plan. Open the book of von der 
Goltz on the Nation in Arms and you will see, on 
one of the first pages, that it is necessary by the 
use of every means to exercise terror* upon a 
populace in order to reduce them more quickly 



134 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

and with a view to shortening the war in the 
interest of humanity. I have not the vohime at 
my hand, but I make affirmation that this stands 
written by the man whom the Germans consider 
one of their greatest war-lords, and I defy any 
contradiction. It is just the kind of thing that 
marks the German mind, the reduction of all 
questions to problems in mechanics in which man 
appears only as an insensible element, to whom 
no more attention need be given than to the ore 
in the mold. The barbarians of the age of bar- 
barism were children of nature, in whom the in- 
stinct of murder and destruction knew no check. 
Our civilized barbarians are creatures of meta- 
physical refinement who intend, in virtue of a 
logic from which all human consideration is ex- 
cluded, to lead us by the worst atrocities of 
savagery, made into a doctrinal system, to the 
heights of their civilization. 

As long as this was a mere aberration in theory, 
an objective study of man would hardly allow 
us to be astonished at it. For there is no line 
of reasoning which, projected into infinity, with- 
out taking account of contingencies which are 
part of the unknown, does not lead to derange- 
ment of the intellect. It is thus that so many 
religions have resulted in bloody sacrifices, glori- 
fications of our native cruelty, and that the Chris- 
tian doctrine of love came to accommodate itself 
to an eternal hell. 

. . . Well, let the experiment in bloody philan- 
thropy follow its course. As for us, we shall not 
dispatch the wounded. On the contrary, our 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 135 

women will proudly make all efforts to save them, 
and when we are on enemy territory we shall aid 
the weak instead of shooting them. Only on the 
field of battle do we accept the war of extermina- 
tion which is imposed on us. Since the people 
who assume the right to rule the world by force 
of arms know no other right than that of supe- 
riority in murder, we shall pursue the battle in 
the conditions which they have themselves laid 
down, reserving for ourselves only the advantage 
over them of a higher morality which commands 
fair play. Yes, it is the benefit of a higher 
morality which I entreat for the men of the 
"modern Babylon," as the austere degenerates 
of Sodom and Gomorrah used to call it in 1870. 
I have seen their Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, roll- 
ing all the night in a filthy torrent of nameless 
animality sodden with beer, tobacco, and bestial 
lewdness, and I rejoiced — though knowing only 
too well our own faults — in affirming that riches 
too easily acquired had never degraded us to that. 
I rejoiced because I saw in that degeneracy of 
our conquerors the beginning of the revenge. 

But this was not enough. We had a right to 
receive the comfort of their deeper degradation. 
And the campaign had not yet opened before 
virtuous Germany was hastening to put herself 
beyond the pale of civilization. In the full view 
of a watching world she lied impudently, through 
the mouths of her Emperor, her ambassadors, and 
her agents of every rank, when she proclaimed 
that she desired to keep the peace and was in- 
volved in the conflict only to the degree in which 
her interests were attached to the cause of 



136 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Austria by the alliance. She lied, because she 
began the hostilities, at the very hour when 
Austria was accepting Sir Edward Grey's pro- 
posals of mediation. She lied, because Austria 
only yesterday declared war on Eussia, and has 
not even yet declared it against France at the 
moment when the German army is shattering 
Liege with its bombs, in cynical violation of 
treaties. She lied when she argued that she was 
coming to defend Belgium against us. She lied, 
and she had ordered her soldiers to lie, when, 
entering Luxembourg, they cried to the inhab- 
itants: "We have come to defend you. Where 
are the French?" 

She lies because she sees in lying a means of 
power, and because no qualm of conscience serves 
notice on her of the infamy of dishonesty. She 
lies, as she assassinates, because it seems advan- 
tageous to her. And she is not capable of the 
idea that a nausea of man and nations is pre- 
paring against her a general insurrection of all 
outraged consciences. She has a presentiment of 
it, perhaps, because it is in the scientific data of 
human experience, but she repeats to herself, in 
travesty, the phrase of Mazarin: "They will cry, 
but I will kill." Even here she deceives herself. 
She cannot kill enough, for she would have to 
destroy, even in her children, the last vestige of 
the conscience in which the anguish of remorse, 
even in victory, would finally arise. 

August 8, 1914. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 137 

Mulhausen, Liege, and the Right 

The charm is broken. All our people have 
thrilled. The French are at Miilhausen. I had 
been awaiting the news, like everybody else, for 
forty-eight hours. And yet when it came, my 
stupid eyes remained fixed on the letters which 
I spelled out one by one to make sure that I was 
not deceiving myself. Yet, it was true, Miil- 
hausen, that sterling French city had, after 
Altkirch, seen the French soldiers entering. Only, 
at Altkirch it was the battle — an intrenched 
German brigade put to rout, at the point of the 
bayonet, by a French brigade — while at Miil- 
hausen it was the celebration. I was there less 
than two years ago. Everywhere were out- 
stretched hands and beating hearts. I looked in 
silence on those ancient stones of France and said 
to them, without daring to fix my hope, "When 
will you see them again, those little soldiers who, 
all the way from Brittany to Provence, only await 
the signal to come back to you 1 ' ' Well, they have 
come, caps on their ears, laughing, weeping, do- 
ing all manner of unreasonable things, but wild 
with joy at the idea that they are there, with only 
the one sorrow that they did not come sooner. 
And I see them again, all those good people of 
Miilhausen, trembling with an emotion which 
strains at their throats and stretching infatuated 
hands toward the tricolor which is passing, though 
they cannot find the strength to utter a sound. 

I know that this is not a great military action, 
I know that this pretty French escapade is no 
important part of our plan of strategy, and that 



138 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

we must not expect any military consequences 
from it. But all the same it was a joy that was 
due us before the curtain should rise on the great 
tragedy. And if our young army had contracted 
this debt to us, it has paid it in good fashion, 
at the right moment. 

. . . Whatever may be the issue of that little 
promenade, which was only an adventure of war, it 
will none the less uplift hearts all over France, and 
nowhere more than among our troops in line at 
the frontier. It is a sign. We have taken the 
offensive, even in Alsace, and the enemy, although 
intrenched, could not hold against us. That 
means that something is changed. What better 
introduction to the great operations which will 
soon be in the foreground! Repulse of the Ger- 
mans before Liege, at Altkirch, at Miilhausen; if 
that is part of the famous plan of Wilhelm II, 
I have nothing to say unless it is that one does 
not gain ground ahead by running backward. 

. . . Without saying as yet that the resistance 
of Liege has shaken the whole plan of Wilhelm II 
— which, nevertheless, is very near the truth — 
anyone can be sure, before the time has arrived 
for great deployments, that the Germans, in un- 
certainty, find themselves thrown out in the prepa- 
rations they had so carefully made. A moral 
effect, and a military advantage; the two results 
combine to put them off the path. 

... In chatting with a friend from Belgium 
the other day, I said to him: 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 139 



C6 



We liad not foreseen, in France, that your 
compatriots, so calm, could become so violent. " 

"Neither had we," he answered, smiling, "and 
no more did they. They have been wounded to 
the quick. They have taken fire, and that is all." 

Our error of foresight was of little importance, 
since we asked nothing of the Belgians. Ger- 
many's was more grave, since she needed their 
territory to be in a better position to strike us 
a treacherous blow. She deceived herself about 
them, she deceived herself about us. The Bel- 
gians have had only one day to curse her. We 
have had forty-four years. For forty-four years, 
day by day, she has reopened our wounds, bruised 
our hearts, and made our blood flow, drop by 
drop. And then, like Shylock, because she needs 
her pound of flesh, she resolved to dispatch us. 
Only, our will was lacking to her plan, and we 
shall prove to her that our will counts. Finally, 
since she has threatened and outraged the con- 
science of Europe we see all Europe that is worthy 
of the name arising, and her own soldiers, who 
fight in mere obedience, are bending while ours 
stand firm because they fight for liberty. 

August 10, 1914. 

Face to Face 

Encounters of patrols. Concentration is being 
accomplished on both sides. More or less hesi- 
tant still, strategic preparations are dictating 
movements of units according to plans that will 
decide the issue of the imminent combats. Each 
soldier, with his hand on his weapon, lives from 



140 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

moment to moment through the terrible silence 
which will be broken in a little while by the 
dreadful thunder of a tempest of artillery. Secure 
in mind, we wait. 

We had but too many reasons for anxiety as 
to the famous hammer-stroke of the brusque at- 
tack, the peril of which the heroism of the Bel- 
gians had arrested even though, for reasons 
beyond our control, the French mobilization was 
notably slower than the German. To-day we can 
already say that this first part of the plan of the 
German general staff has definitely failed. While 
the Kaiser is endeavoring to maintain the morale 
of his country by gross lies about conditions in 
Paris and throughout France, as well as about 
the results of the first encounters, our forces are 
methodically growing from hour to hour with 
fresh additions of men and armament. Doubtless 
this is true also on the other side of the frontier, 
but the Germans are losing more and more the 
advantages of early concentrations of troops 
which were permitted to them by the underhand 
devices of their maneuvers prior to the decree of 
mobilization. 

It is not easy to predict as yet the form in 
which will take shape, if it is to take shape, the 
great movement along the Meuse, or whether 
some great strategic change of plan will not call 
our attention to another sector. The dice are 
shaking in the hand of Destiny. My complete 
incompetence in the art of war, reinforced by the 
conviction that no science is independent of the 
higher laws of common sense, relieves me of all 
hesitation in freely expressing opinions which 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 141 

need influence no one, but in which the reader 
will find traces of meditation. 

Well, in the simple virtue of my own reasoning, 
I feel that although the brusque attach seems now 
to have miscarried, we remain none the less face 
to face with the great plan of the German general 
staff. That plan is known. It has long ago been 
printed in all the gazettes, in all the magazines. 
We have always been told that the great Russian 
Empire was weak in the slowness with which it 
must effect its mobilization. That is the reason 
for the idea of the Jominis at Berlin, an idea 
possibly a little too simple, of hurling their masses 
against the French frontier, of breaking through 
in a torrent of steel, and of cutting a path, at 
whatever cost, to the heart of our country, before 
the Russian army could be in condition to threaten 
seriously the other border of the country. 

The idea looks well upon paper. They will 
have three army corps on the Russian frontier, 
with certain divisions in reserve. They will hurl 
twenty-three corps, increased, if possible, with an 
Austrian complement, against our twenty corps, 
who will be magically outflanked and annihilated; 
they will enter Paris like a cannon-ball; they will 
return and rush to the Vistula to strike down 
Russia with a back-hand blow. Not long ago 
they were even arguing that we would have 
capitulated before Russia could have opened her 
campaign, and that they might spare her the 
horrors of a useless war. 

... In a word, the problem of the German 
army is to break through our frontier at several 



142 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

points at once. Even if we suppose that she suc- 
ceeds in obtaining temporarily certain partial 
successes, we are assured from now on that we 
can guard such strategic points as will more than 
embarrass her march forward. Only, to guard 
these advantages, if I may be permitted to hold 
an opinion in such matters, it is necessary to 
forego our offensive for the moment. We are 
holding at this moment, before Russia has begun 
to take active part in the war, certain impreg- 
nable positions in which, up to the present, the 
enemy who was to fly like an arrow from Longwy 
and Nancy to Paris does not dare to attack us. 
Every day adds to the concentration of our 
forces and those of Russia, with whom it is of 
the highest importance for us to cooperate at one 
moment. That is why I wish we could abate a 
little of our French fury, since in strategy, as in 
all other things, skill lies in doing everything at 
the right time. This should not hinder us, let 
it be understood, from doing our full duty with 
our brothers in arms in Belgium, if the Meuse, 
as is announced, continues to tempt Germany. 

But the inexcusable mistake of the Kaiser's 
general staff was to reckon as of equal value the 
French of 1914 and those of 1870. It is this, more 
than their errors in the art of war (though these 
are numerous enough up to the present) which 
shows us that our invaders to come are destined 
to certain defeat. Forty years of sterile quarrels, 
they thought in their folly, condemned us to im- 
potence. They were insensate in their lack of 
vision. A wound is necessary that muscle may 
be grafted to muscle, and skin upon skin. Out- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 143 

side of Italy, we have probably carried dissension 
further than any people in the world, but the 
blood of our race is but the more prepared for a 
union of all hearts when the foreigner threatens 
the existence of our country. 

Little by little, without our knowing exactly how, 
the great vitality of our race has been exerting 
itself, and already a remarkable network of vigor- 
ous roots has grown up in our minds, distributing 
the healthy sap of older days. How many times, 
with all the strength of my voice, have I called 
to the youth of the land, who did not seem to 
me to respond. They held their silence, searching 
themselves, under the blows of misfortune. Know- 
ing well enough what would be asked of them, 
perhaps they did not yet know themselves. Per- 
haps, also, confident in some irresistible power, 
they were simply waiting their day. 

The day has come, and at a bound France has 
found herself again, joyously proud to see rising 
to her aid, along with so many valiant women, 
along with a whole population of children in 
attitude of combat like the young David of 
Michelangelo, her soldiers, her captains, her gen- 
erals, — hundreds of thousands, millions of men 
who are but one. Ah, it is no longer 1870, when 
we were surprised in our stupid indolence, heed- 
less of our condition, disorganized, without power 
and without virtue. 

I begin to wonder, indeed, if it is not the hour 
for Germany to expiate her too easy victories. 
Her signal errors in the beginning make me doubt 
her power more than I had hoped. Full of dis- 
dain and self-infatuation, the Germans have not 



144 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

■understood that their successes of forty years ago 
were due principally to the fact that that genera- 
tion of Frenchmen did not deserve victory. 
Drunk with blood, knowing no scruple, always 
ready with lies and treacherous snares, always 
prepared to violate treaties and assassinate the 
weak, — which, in the night of their conscience, 
they sought to justify on grounds of " utility,' ' — 
they believed themselves masters because they 
saw no defense against the flood of their fury. 
They were mistaken. Man derives an irresistible 
power from the sentiment of right, a power that 
lifts him above himself, while under his eye all 
this evil mass of humanity goes to destruction. 
Strong or weak, our soldiers await the German 
onrush, in that redoubtable serenity which be- 
speaks an invincible resolution, and behind those 
who fall others are already advancing, and 
others, and yet others; and there will come so 
many that these murderers of wounded and of 
children will be weary unto death before we shall 
have ceased to call to the combat their reluctant 
companions. 

August 13, 1914. 

The Unity of France 

. . . No error in the mobilization. "Universal 
enthusiasm, perfect order/ 1 someone telegraphs 
me from the front line. What better can we ask? 
Undoubtedly the main force of the German army 
is not yet engaged, nor the main force of the 
French. All the same it is a considerable ad- 
vantage to register, up to the present, a series 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 145 

of notable successes. If the morale of the troops 
is excellent, no less can be said of the country 
itself, which, without a single gesture of disorder, 
but in perfect discipline, is organizing its activi- 
ties by work for which all people, without dis- 
tinction of age or sex, are enthusiastically offering 
their devoted aid. It is another phenomenon of 
national psychology which the great German ob- 
servers had not foreseen. 

"The French will quarrel forever," they had 
thought, "and while they are at each other's 
throats we shall put through our business." 
What say you now, you famous psychologists who 
behold the non-combatants fighting in their own 
way by dedicating their efforts to the maintenance 
of the public life in all its activities in order to 
place all the resources of the country at the dis- 
position of our soldiers? "We shall be saved by 
the Commune/ 9 Szecsen would have said on the 
eve of his departure. If Germany and her ally 
have no other prospect of safety but this, they are 
in a bad way. Never were situations more unlike, 
never were the French people of all regions, of 
all cities and provinces, further from the spirit 
of dissension. It is because they understood in- 
stinctively, as Szecsen himself did, that civil 
discord would mean the end of France, would 
offer the determining aid to the hordes who need 
to annihilate the French mind in order to enjoy 
their mastery in savagery. 

I search our history for a comparable hour. 
When were we more calm, more united, more 
literally brethren, more sure of ourselves because 
each of us feels that the sovereign power is in the 



146 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

unity of all and that not a man, not a woman, 
not a child even, is lacking to the unity of France 1 
Let thanks be given to the German Emperor, the 
hatred of whom has brought us this miracle of 
self-revelation, when for so many centuries we 
had not known ourselves. A people that dis- 
covers, in the extremity of misfortune, a tireless 
power of regeneration, a people that is tempered 
anew by trial, that gains a new soul and a new 
will — that people, since it must be, may con- 
fidently meet the test of a terrible war on which 
it would be our highest glory to found peace. 

August 15, 1914. 

j 

Foe Ouk Soldiers 

At his frontier the soldier of France is equipped, 
armed with alert mind and warm heart, ready for 
the supreme exertion of all his energies. I saw 
him depart, with a grave hope in his eyes, with 
a joy inspired by the song in his heart proclaim- 
ing his entrance upon the magnificent field of 
French glory where he would add his name to the 
annals of his ancestors. Smiling and resolute, he 
now awaits the adversary sent by a Master to 
conquer the land of France for the use of Germans, 
the adversary who is pleased with the massacre of 
unarmed populations, who burns and pillages and 
knows no other law than the bestial instinct of 
cruelty. 

Our forefathers lived through centuries of mis- 
ery seeking in grievous suffering the obscure paths 
toward a better world. One cannot describe the 
mute desolation of the generations that passed. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 147 

And then there broke forth from France, more 
than a hundred years ago, a great cry for justice 
and liberty. And the peoples arose at this new 
voice, and the civilization of modern man was 
founded; not without terrible civil struggles and 
great battles against the foreigner. 

Then the fathers of those who are to-day facing 
you were seen quitting their Germany, wretched 
in its servitude, in the attempt to force under their 
own yoke that France which their chief threatened 
with summary execution because she announced 
the hope of a new humanity. It was the peasants, 
the French peasants, great of heart and noble in 
idea, who, badly equipped, and often badly com- 
manded, rushed into arms and, without anyone's 
really knowing how, drove back the best soldiers 
of Europe, the flower of the enemy armies. 

Yes, we really do not know how it happened. 
Authors argue about it and certain of them even 
affirm that by all the rules it was wrong to declare 
the victory for our side against the authorities 
in the art of war. Right or wrong, the foreigner 
nevertheless turned his back to us, and France, 
delivered, could proclaim that she owed her safety, 
with the salvation of many great humanitarian 
doctrines, to the bravery of her children. 

Such is the history of our ancestors, which 
would be too beautiful if so much heroism at the 
frontier had not been accompanied by the most 
sinister violence of civil war that the world has 
ever seen. 

And now it comes about that an incredible repe- 
tition of fate puts us again face to face with these 
same men of Germany who, having surprised us 



148 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

without arms forty years ago, judge that the hour 
has come to have done with us. It is to maintain 
the right of France to life that all the men of 
France find themselves standing side by side, foody 
and soul intent on the arm that is going to deliver 
us anew from the foreigner. 

All united, this time; and consequently all un- 
conquerable in their might. All hatred is abol- 
ished. The tradition of past dissensions we no 
longer know. We know nothing now but that we 
are children of one France, and that this mother 
of beauty, of grandeur, and of valor has need of 
us. She cried for our help, and we found that 
we were brothers, stupid to have believed that we 
were enemies. And the ardor of our first enthu- 
siasm is such that we seem to find ourselves 
changed, though all the while the same men we 
were, and that we can never again be suspicious 
of ourselves as we had been before. 

Happy soldiers, who represent a France that is 
one! Happier than those of the year II, who 
dreamed that she was such but to whom was never 
granted the joy of realizing that dream. Happy 
soldiers, who see, who are, a France united for 
a new beginning in history, in which the immemo- 
rial branches, sprung from the ancient trunk, are 
soon to receive the adornment of new foliage from 
your triumphant hands. That France you are 
yourselves creating, happy soldiers of this great 
hour. You reveal her in her splendor when you 
give her your bodies, your hearts, all that you 
have received of her; all that is your life. And 
because she is great immortally, and noble, and 
radiant, and because you are of her flesh, of her 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 149 

will, of lier flame, the sacrifice which you make to 
her will lift you into the company of the highest. 
You reserve nothing, you give all for the perpet- 
uation of France. Let him who can, do more. 
Your children will know that having received the 
charge of a great past of labor and of blood, it 
was your nobility to offer labor and blood in your 
turn. 

On the day of Valmy a great intellect, lost in 
the German army, struck with a ray of light at 
the incredible sight of the French victory, an- 
nounced that a new kind of world would emerge 
from that decisive day. And it was true. Happy 
soldiers, who with your strong hands, are forging 
a day still more splendid, since from this France, 
tender and strong, whom you will save from the 
outrages of barbarity, there must arise through 
the high virtue of your fraternal union, a better 
mother-land for Frenchmen and for all men, a 
blessing for humanity. 

August 17, 1914. 

All Goes Well 

. . . Their hearts are in it, their arms are 
good, and the men are strong. What more can 
we desire 1 Everywhere I go I hear only the com- 
plaints of men not yet called who besiege the min- 
istry with their demands to be sent at the first 
moment to meet the enemy. Every day my cor- 
respondence is full of the same thing. And the 
troopers of Algiers who have strained their mus- 
cles and their nerves for twenty years in expec- 
tation of this day are struggling at the leash, on 



150 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the soil of Africa, desperate at the thought that 
the French are going to fight for France and that 
they, the soldiers, will not be there. An officer 
writes me that if this keeps up he will desert in 
order to enlist. To such a point spirits are 
mounting. 

Yesterday a hasty journey in Normandy demon- 
strated to me the admirable calm of the country. 
Calm and good humor also, I should have said; 
founded on the unshakable confidence of all 
France in her soldiers. The harvest is delayed, as 
we know. Everybody is hurrying. Women and 
children are at the work, their hearts filled with 
thoughts of those who, in another field with other 
scythes, are harvesting the growths of savagery. 
They cry courage to those other harvesters, and 
all their discourse is directed to the frontier, to 
the cannon's mouth. There is but one heart and 
one will in our people. 

All that can be done will be done, and if need 
be, even more. They are off, this time, our 
Frenchmen; no one will stop them. 

. . . I do not know the state of the bellicose 
passions of the people of Berlin. As for us, mod- 
est Frenchmen, we are doing well, and I have rea- 
son to believe that our decadence, proclaimed by 
pan-Germanism at every cross-roads in the world, 
finds itself for the moment adjourned. 

All Continues Well 

Along the whole front the two adversaries con- 
tinue to measure each other, to try out their of- 



PRANCE FACING GERMANY 151 

fensive in skirmishes more or less fortunate, with 
the purpose not so much of obtaining a marked 
advantage as of strengthening the morale of their 
troops and of preparing the blow that may arise 
from a flash of strategic inspiration with dexterity 
of execution. It may seem surprising if I say 
that the morale even of our troops needs to be 
tempered on the field of battle. This is never- 
theless true. Our men have too much enthusiasm ; 
it sometimes happens that their officers have a 
great deal of trouble in holding them back. There 
are cases in which, because they have rushed for- 
ward without waiting for the order to come, they 
have suffered heavy losses which ought to have 

been spared us. " At X -," says a letter which 

I have seen, "we lost too many men by our own 
fault. We were in such a hurry to get through 
our business that some of us rushed forward at 
four hundred meters from the enemy ; all the rest 
unfortunately followed. We shall not do it 
again." 

I am told that this has been the case at several 
points. The genius of war, for the general as for 
the private, is in knowing how to combine daring 
and prudence, according to occasion. Too valor- 
ous, if we may dare to make this fine reproach 
to him, our trooper needs to be more careful, to 
be governed in action by the hands of his leaders. 
It is in this sense that his morale will be fashioned 
by the test of battle. 

The Germans, on the other hand, in spite of 
their reputation for endurance, have shown them- 
selves quick to relax. An education of cowardice 
cannot produce daring. We have all read the note, 



152 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

found in the pocket-book of a dead German, in 
which it was stated that a false pretext had been 
invoked to assassinate civilians. Those who thus 
degrade themselves bring dishonor to their army 
and to the government which encourages them by 
not punishing them. Cowards who mistreat and 
kill prisoners, who shoot young girls and children, 
may be expected to take flight when they see men 
rising to confront them. 

We need not fear that our soldier will let his 
ardor cool. The ascendency that he has gained 
over the adversary he will maintain. I believe that 
he will be able even to heighten it. 

i 

The Gkeat Battle 

All minds are beginning to be fixed anxiously 
on one idea : the great battle ! The preliminaries 
have been favorable to us beyond what we could 
reasonably hope. But now is coming the first 
grand shock in which the German masses — a mil- 
lion men, perhaps — must hurl themselves against 
the stone wall of our frontier guarded by all our 
youths in arms. It is a great hour in history that 
is about to strike, for out of the battles of this 
war must come a complete change, for European 
servitude or liberty. 

Whatever may be the extent of it, and whatever 
the number of men engaged, no one would main- 
tain that the first great battle can allow us to pre- 
judge the issue. And yet, in the condition in which 
this vast operation of war will take place, the 
moral advantage which we have conquered, the 
ground gained without really taking the offensive, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 153 

and the disarray in which the simple resistance 
of the Belgians has thrown the enemy, make it a 
fact that already the value of success or of defeat 
is not the same for the two sides. 

If our frontier were broken at certain points — 
and there is nothing at present to make us fear it 
— our troops of the second line are ready for im- 
mediate effort to repel the invader. And then, 
behind those there are others, until the last boy 
and the last old man have succumbed, with the last 
man of England, also, as the Times tells us, while 
the inexhaustible masses of the Slavic world will 
take the enemy in the rear. The planet has never 
before seen a military enterprise of this extent. 

On the other side of the barricade a warlike 
power swollen with the easy victories of 1870- 
1871, strengthened by all the weaknesses of the 
great powers during forty years, has thought to 
defy all civilization by the most insolent aggres- 
sion that history has ever seen. But the very 
nature of human societies brings it about that the 
madness of brutal tyranny must infallibly expiate 
its sins by the inevitable internal decomposition of 
the forces accumulated for the monstrous abuses 
of power of which the conqueror may dream, 
but which always succumb before the great revolts 
of liberty. In the case of Germany it appears that 
the disorganization of the forces intended for the 
oppression of Europe is not less rapid, at this 
moment, than was their inordinate growth. At 
the first rush of Belgians impudently provoked, at 
the first assault of those who lost Sedan, the odious 
colossus staggered on its base, and the fierce beast 
who was going to devour all has already had to 



154 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

retire in so many encounters that the magic fear 
of his tusks already seems no more than the 
shadow of a cloud. 

This is what our soldiers have accomplished, 
with the brave Belgians, even before the first 
pitched battle, — those French soldiers who are 
waiting at the frontier, in the silence of united 
strength, for a formidable explosion of fury. The 
best troops of the German Empire are coming 
against us with a preliminary loss of military 
prestige. If they do not succeed, as I believe they 
will not, in breaking through our boundaries, the 
blow struck at the renown of the Prussian soldier 
and the semi-infallibility of German plans, as well 
as the moral disaster which will be the conse- 
quence, will come very near having, for our im- 
pulsive souls, as for the hopes of peoples weary 
of servitude, the significance of a definitive 
victory. 

So already the stake is not the same. A defeat 
of our soldiers — which our generals are very far 
from foreseeing — would only be one of those pre- 
liminary checks promptly reparable, while for 
Germany to be repulsed from our frontiers would 
be, for her, a wound which many would believe 
incurable and which would quickly spread discour- 
agement among her people as well as in her army. 
Undoubtedly the war would be far from finished, 
for everything indicates that it will last until 
great resources are exhausted, but it is one thing 
to fight, like us, with full confidence in final suc- 
cess, and another to fight in the daily anguish of 
seeing one's hopes betrayed. 

We have no grounds to-day for predicting the 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 155 

consequences, but if this misfortune, which I wish 
them with all my heart, is to be the lot of our 
enemies, perhaps they will then understand too 
late the strength of that magnificent rebuilding of 
our forces which we knew how to accomplish in 
a day when armies, government, administration, 
and all organized means of action were lacking to 
us. Let them try in their turn to renew, at their 
expense, a "war in the provinces." Where will 
be their men? Where their Gambetta, their Frey- 
cinet? If they had been able to understand it, 
they might have felt then that there was a re- 
doubtable force which, if pushed to the extreme, 
would confront them dangerously some day, and 
our defeats, in that case, might have appeared to 
them the presage of their own. 

But they would not understand, and, just as 
they dared yesterday to shoot a woman ivlio was 
nursing her baby, the brutes made it their pleas- 
ure to trample upon France, making gay as they 
counted each new drop of blood. Then they 
thought they could do what they pleased, and I 
believe they are now in the way to find out their 
mistake. "To the last horse," said Wilhelm II, 
esthete of war. "To the last man," England and 
Russia answered in a breath. And as for us, if 
we said nothing, it is because we were already 
preparing to speak in action. 

August 20 y 1914 

Ready 

. . . The great blow! All the military forces 
that can be concentrated, all the engines of de- 



156 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

struction and fury that can be collected are to be 
hurled in a supreme effort against the French 
lines, which the enemy has sworn to break at any 
price. The Germans know that they are in such 
a situation as to give the world the impression of 
a game almost irretrievably compromised if this 
attack does not succeed. To overbalance all these 
checks, one after another, all these prisoners — 
we have already more than 6,000— all these guns 
captured by the Bussians as well as by the French, 
it is necessary that a battle in which carnage shall 
rage in unmeasured proportions throw the peoples 
of the world into a stupor that will make them for- 
get everything. We have agreed to meet the on- 
rush, we who are not obliged, for the opening of 
the campaign, to stake all our chances on one blow. 
We cannot hope to offer equal resistance all 
along such a vast front. The frightful combat, 
which perhaps will not exhaust itself in three or 
four days, will have its successes and reverses. 
But in what different conditions for the two 
parties! Are we driven back at certain points! 
Our soldiers have all the country in arms behind 
them. The army of the second line is eager, in 
its turn, to engage in battle. Youths, grown to 
man's estate, only await the hour to face the 
enemy. Everybody knows that our reserve sol- 
diers equal those of the active army, while the 
German reservist, portly from his beer and easily 
fatigued by marches, is not in condition to "sustain 
a bold offensive. For us it is a struggle of endur- 
ance. There is not a man of France in reasonable 
health who will not demand a place in the firing 
line. Whatever happens we will not yield. The 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 157 

British have said so with us. We have no need 
to speak. We shall act. 

We have not, like the German army, good sol- 
diers and bad ones. All our men are willing to 
give up everything to make a final reckoning with 
the brutes whom the French government, in a pro- 
test that has already become history, has just 
fastened in the pillory as dishonoring mankind. 
The Germans will find before them all our men 
from the greatest to the smallest, while at the 
other border of their country the Eussian armies 
will push on their heavy columns toward Berlin. 

What they have seen of the French recently was 
enough to give them warning. They will see no 
better ones, but they will see none worse. It has 
been their will that the hour should come when, 
under the insolence of their threats and the bru- 
tality of their blows, France should be inspired to 
pour out her blood to the last man for the right 
of surviving in whatever may remain of her little 
children. And all civilized Europe is with us. 
You have ill calculated your strength. You can- 
not efface France, England, and Eussia from the 
map of the world. 

I have adopted the supposition that is least 
favorable to us. What fate awaits the Germans 
on the ground to which they will be driven back? 
A generous and proud people whom they have 
driven to the extremities of fury, a country which, 
in several regions, offers numerous obstacles, — is 
it on these that they can rely in reorganizing them- 
selves, at a time when we have every reason to 
believe that they will have certain troops cutting 
in upon their flanks? 



158 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Let the terrible days come, then, when France 
must sacrifice to the dark Moloch of destiny the 
purest of her blood. She is resolved to live. She 
is resolved to live, not for the pleasure of mas- 
sacre, like her enemies, but that she may bring 
them to a peace founded on that justice which is 
the sole source of human grandeur. We stand 
rifle to rifle, cannon to cannon, and this time at 
least — all Frenchmen stand forth to guarantee it 
— it is courage which will gain the victory. 

August 22, 1914. 

The Preliminary Silence 

What more terrible than the silence that pre- 
cedes the great battle ! How much more terrible 
still when it presages the uproar of war in which 
the two halves of what was European civilization 
are coming to clash in bloodshed such as the dark- 
est days of savagery could not even dream of! 
Just as we have never been able historically to 
determine the occasion of the Peloponnesian War, 
but are only too certain that even without the ad- 
venture of the courtesans of Megara, the Doric and 
the Attic states would have been tempted to come 
to conclusions with each other, so no one will ever 
believe that the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia is 
the real cause of the armed march of all the Ger- 
man people against the eastern and northern 
frontiers of France. 

The subjection to Prussia of Saxony, of Ba- 
varia, and of the Germans in Austria, after Sa- 
dowa, built up in the heart of Europe a confeder- 



FEANCB FACING GERMANY 159 

ation of Teutonic powers which, for forty years, 
has been holding Europe under the threat of a ter- 
rible explosion. I have said this often, indeed, 
in the tribune and in the press, without ever being 
able to obtain for my somber predictions the 
credit which might have been of benefit to France. 
I did not base my statements on personal infor- 
mation. No one had entrusted me with confi- 
dences. I was reasoning merely from the obvious 
phenomena of the German mind, for to foresee the 
future clearly it was necessary only to note the 
growth of the appetite for omnipotence which the 
Kaiser and his subjects proclaimed in every 
quarter. 

As early as 1875 the logical Bismarck, as- 
tounded to see that we were not dead, put himself 
to the task of completing our ruin. Eussia and 
England interposed their veto, and the old Em- 
peror, content to slumber in the glory of his un- 
expected successes, did not dare to risk a new 
battle. But the scheme was patent, and German 
policy has never departed from it. I have no need 
to tell over the provocations and aggressive acts, 
known to all, which sometimes, so great was our 
shortsightedness, took us unawares. We were 
saved, then, in spite of ourselves, and in order 
that the premeditation of the inexpressible design 
might be manifest to all eyes, it was necessary that 
by means of a quarrel sought by Austria against 
Serbia, in the course of which Serbia conceded 
everything except her right to life, Wilhelm II 
should light the universal conflagration that he 
needed to exhibit himself to all men as the master 
of the world. 



160 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

The aiidacity of the proceeding surpasses all 
that has been seen hitherto. The error of tyrants 
is not to reckon with the facts of human conscience 
— to believe, in the weakness of their intelligence, 
that they can subject the soul with the body. The 
subjects of Wilhelm II have slavishly submitted 
to him. He can make them fight, on whatever 
day suits him, against whatever people he desires, 
without owing them an explanation, without giv- 
ing them a reason. He has grossly manufactured 
his pretexts for war. Even the Socialists have fol- 
lowed him. It is by their submission that he 
judges the rest of humanity. And just as he can- 
not intend to heighten the honor of his own people, 
since to govern them as he does he needs to de- 
grade them under iron rule, the wretch would be 
unable to conceive a higher ambition than to sub- 
ject, on his way round the world, all the men whom 
he may encounter on his path. The Germans fol- 
low him, proud to serve a master capable of im- 
posing servitude on every continent, content to 
return, in their attempt to beat down the free 
peoples, to the primitive cruelties of savagery. 

To turn all the discoveries of civilization 
against civilization itself, to become the instru- 
ment of the highest development of brute force in 
the world — that is what Germany hopes and dares 
to attempt. Sprung from the Eevolution, the con- 
quering Napoleon represented in spite of himself 
certain doctrines of liberation. The Kaiser prob- 
ably expects to honor us by crushing us under a 
tyranny that has no other title than the might of 
his sword. For having resisted a similar ava- 
lanche of reaction, the Greeks immortalized them- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 161 

selves at Marathon and Salamis, but here we can- 
not count upon the panic of terror that miracu- 
lously dispersed the enemy. The most formidable 
mass of armed men that has ever been assembled 
on earth is marching against our frontier to put 
an end to us; to put an end to France and Bel- 
gium, to England, to Russia, to the Slavic peoples, 
to Poland, to the peoples of the Balkans, who, at 
the price of their blood, believed themselves liber- 
ated. Such an enterprise has never been seen. 

To take Paris, London, and Moscow requires 
powers that even Berlin does not possess. They 
had tried to conciliate England in order to turn 
her against France by appeasing her with a share 
of the spoils. They failed. Then they promised 
themselves to obtain at least the neutrality of Eng- 
land while they proceeded to swallow up the 
France thus isolated. They failed. They thought 
they could count on the supposed weakness of 
Russia, because she was slow to move. They were 
much deceived. They were all prepared to hurl 
Italy against us. Italy, from the first day, has let 
them know that they had no right to count on her 
for the accomplishment of such a design. 

Well, let destiny be fulfilled. After all, with the 
door of Belgium broken in, it is France which 
must meet the great onrush of the German 
masses everywhere at once. Let them strike 
her down, let them destroy her, let them 
scatter fire and steel everywhere, let them kill 
the old men and women and children in her 
villages, let them put the torch to her cities, 
let the whole life of this people be crushed under 
the sledge-hammer of the hordes that have revived 



162 FBANCB FACING GERMANY 

the tradition of Attila. England guards the seas, 
but cannot engage the German squadrons shel- 
tered by the lines of undersea mines. A hundred 
thousand Englishmen are by the side of the 
French in Belgium. The German army, before 
gaining the French frontier, is trying to envelop 
them. In the meantime Russia, at the other ex- 
tremity of the Empire, is in action against three 
army corps, and as many reserve divisions, with 
which Germany opposes her, with all the forces of 
Austria to sustain them. The Belgian resistance 
has made the armies of the Kaiser lose precious 
time. It only remains to see whether the invader 
will have the time to disorganize the French re- 
sistance sufficiently before the great Russian 
masses menace Berlin too directly. As for us, we 
know that Wilhelm II will not succeed. 

He has gathered together all his enormous mili- 
tary forces to strike one blow. This blow must be 
decisive, the first and the last at once, a blow from 
which we cannot rearise. Can he believe that? 
Can he know us no better than that? We shall 
take up the fight again after the battle. Since he 
is not willing to judge us by our operations at the 
opening, we will give him the opportunity of ap- 
praising us all together. 

August 23, 1914. 



IV 
FEOM CHARLEEOI TO THE MAENE 

The Prime Duty 

The day of the test is coming. I have never 
dissimulated the fact that it would come inevi- 
tably. I did not know the moment, I did not know 
the circumstance. It seemed to me impossible that 
serious checks should not come to us at certain 
moments. Although the disappointment is great, 
we must not exaggerate it. Salvation is in our- 
selves, if we clearly see our duty and show our- 
selves capable of fulfilling it to the end. 

. . . The French people is not vanquished. 
Their strength and their endurance are not ex- 
hausted. They cannot be exhausted as long as 
there remains of France enough for a man to set 
foot on. No boasting — enough of phrases ! It is 
acts that must speak for us. 

... To sustain this terrible onrush valiantly, 
to hold back the aggressor on our territory in a 
heroic hand to hand combat that surpasses all the 
energy that our historical development has per- 
mitted us to accumulate, is to aid those who are 
aiding us. For each French soldier struck mor- 
tally but still clutching the enemy in a grip from 

163 



164 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

which the pretended victor cannot free himself, 
there is a Kussian over there, saved from defeat, 
who will bring us the victory. All to the work 
of defense, then, with no arm and no heart miss- 
ing ! All ! Let him go and beg his charter of Ger- 
man servitude, the wretch who would hide when 
it is the hour to show himself. We have shown 
enough complacence to cowardice more or less 
gilded. Let us have the rigor of the law for all. 
It is not monuments that are needed for the heroes 
of these great days. It is the unwavering support 
of a government which offers work to all in the 
nation's cause, and nails to the pillar of infamy 
the vicious herd of degenerates who, knowing not 
how to live, would show themselves unworthy to 
die in grace. 

As for us, we demand a government of steel, 
indefectible, the inflexible armature of one of the 
noblest races of history, which insists on nothing 
except its right to live in independence that it may 
continue its good work in the field of liberty. For 
this is not a war of governments for conquests of 
territory or the exploitation of subjects. It is not 
even a war of peoples who do not know each other 
and who manage even in fratricidal combats, such 
as have occurred between us and England, to keep 
open avenues more or less circuitous to the happy 
relief of reconciliation. 

No, Wilhelm II and his unanimous subjects can 
no longer be contented with less than our exter- 
mination. We did not want this war. We said 
and did all that was possible to avoid it. Wilhelm 
II could not even now remember all the mass of 
lies that were told to bring it on. As soon as it 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 165 

seemed to him that his machine of murder was 
ready, that machine that was prepared day by 
day, hour by hour, for forty years, he gave the 
august signal for his grand steam-roller which 
was to level the ground of civilized Europe for the 
use of barbarism. He left Berlin swearing to put 
an end, this time, to the people from whom there 
came an influence for the freedom to which his 
reign of force can give no quarter. And now, with 
his formidable army, he is before us. 

We have made mistakes, many and serious mis- 
takes, which leave us open to-day to cruel blows 
which it would have been easy, in the course of a 
long peace, to prepare against. In 1870 we were 
surprised. What we are seeing to-day could only 
come from the combination of our heedlessness 
and our inconstancy. I am far from any thought 
of recrimination. It is not the time to judge. I 
no longer know the names of those who have been 
at fault. I am willing to say that all, in different 
ways, have been at fault. All of us, without a 
word of reproach which would only be a loss of 
force, all of us will put our shoulders to the wheel 
to accomplish the arduous work of national re- 
habilitation. 

The rehabilitation must come from the union 
of all energies put at the service of the country 
in a common movement of inflexible discipline; 
from sacrifice, and since the event requires it, the 
sacrifice of blood. The rehabilitation must come, 
not by phrases which are the feeble instrument of 
a degenerate romanticism, but by the acts of su- 
perhuman effort which fate and the traditions of 
our history demand of us and which we have no 



166 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

longer the right to refuse. All of us to our duty 
until death,- — and afterward, indeed, by that power 
of example which makes the dead rise from their 
native ground to tell the living that this is no 
longer the time to be in love with life, when those 
who will be the France of to-morrow require of 
us the glory of having lived for something more 
than to remain alive without reason for living. 
If we are capable of rising to this, France will be 
saved through us. If not, all the land of France, 
over which will crawl creatures without souls, will 
become a province of Germany. We can choose. 

This even Germany has understood. At the 
very hour when she is outflanking our army of 
defense to enter like a thunderbolt upon our ter- 
ritory, she has heard passing through the air the 
great cry of invisible powers which announce to 
the peoples that a tragic hour has struck. Against 
whom is the verdict of destiny? Justice is noth- 
ing without force at its command. It is a ques- 
tion as to who will have the greatest force on his 
side. Great Britain, France, and Eussia are too 
powerful against Germany, even leading behind 
the supposed support of the army vanquished at 
Sadowa. So we see that the settling of such a 
great account frightens her at the moment when, 
without having yet met on our soil the second 
blow of our armies of defense, she is announcing 
beforehand a triumphant advance which presup- 
poses that men have submitted who, whatever may 
happen, will not submit. Therefore from our own 
frontier is issued the order to mobilize all the men 
of Germany down to boys of sixteen. 

It is well. Send us the last of your children 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 167 

to finish the slaughter of ours whom you shoot at 
the mother's breast. Doubtless your little ones, 
in their turn, must feast on blood. What! have 
you come to this, that you must get ready to 
throw your budding youths into the slaughter of 
the battle-field, because you already feel that your 
men will be too few against us? On our side, 
though we are less numerous than you, we shall 
not have need of this supreme effort. For you 
fight only to put Europe under the yoke of your 
savage race, while we are the soldiers of Western 
civilization, and any man who feels his right to 
liberty, to the honor of a free life, betrays himself 
if he does not come to take his place in our ranks 
in this uproar of battle. No Frenchman will be 
missing. We have no need to call them to their 
posts of combat. You had prepared everything, 
foreseen everything. We are going to show you 
something that you were not expecting. You will 
see nothing but men welded into one by a single 
thought, by a single will — the thought of France 
and the will to maintain her throughout all. And 
-since someone has said that for every man France 
is a second fatherland, all those who expect im- 
mortal deeds of us and of our comrades in arms 
will wish to be in the battle where the greatest 
cause of mankind is at stake. Also, against the 
children of Germany, whom you are tearing from 
their schools to make them fight against the idea 
from which their liberation must some day come, 
the men of France stand in combat, in the hope of 
directing them, more or less tenderly, according 
as is necessary, into the right path. 
And with this said, let each Frenchman gird up 



168 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 

his loins for the great duty. No boasting — no 
weakness. It is grand enough to be yourselves. 
The country has need of all of you. 

August 23, 28, 1914. 

By Endueance 

... A violent action near Mezieres; victorious 
near Guise, we are yielding around La Fere; in 
Lorraine we are said to be advancing. At least 
we have now certain guiding indications, such as 
we have lacked too long. All these battles which 
bring no decisive results are none the less of the 
highest importance, since they retard just so much 
the march of the German armies on Paris. 

After the surrender of Sedan and the invest- 
ment of Metz, France was without an army. 
There is nothing comparable in her situation to- 
day. The French army keeps the field. It has 
suffered severely, but it has inflicted no less heavy 
losses on the enemy, and our own o eight to be 
more easily reparable. It is resisting indef atigably 
everywhere, with varying fortune, as in the his- 
tory of every war. It has had to retreat at certain 
points. It has advanced at others. And the battle 
is so closely joined that even if we give ground 
in certain places, the Germans do not always 
easily regain their freedom in the offensive. 

It appears that so long as we have all the forces 
of Germany against us we cannot hope to drive 
them back quickly to the frontier. To worry the 
invading troops, to dispute the ground against 
them, to cut them off from their base when this 
becomes possible, these are appreciable achieve- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 169 

ments until the day when the risk of an offensive 
operation might be taken. All the combats of 
which we hear are so many efforts in this direc- 
tion. They are, indeed, the opening of a cam- 
paign which must not end otherwise than in the 
common victory of France, Great Britain, and Eus- 
sia, when they shall have closed in their pincers on 
the two sides of Germany. To accomplish this, 
as I have not feared to announce beforehand, will 
require time, a great deal of time, and a great 
deal of suffering. Already our unfortunate popu- 
lation in the North has experienced it. Let us 
remember this saying of a Japanese general: 
"Victory comes to the man who is capable of 
suffering a quarter of an hour longer than his 
adversary." We have come to the hour when 
we must begin the practise of this great lesson. 

News comes from all directions of bands of 
refugees who are leaving their burning villages 
under the hail of German shells. All of us are 
under great obligations to them. I have no doubt 
that the government and individuals will do their 
duty by them. And what can we say of those 
unfortunate cities, flourishing yesterday, in heaps 
of ruins to-day! All the factories have been sys- 
tematically destroyed by shells and incendiary 
bombs. The land is being ravaged in all the 
horror of scientific method. In the crumbled 
walls, taken and retaken turn by turn, are raging 
the battles that must continue over a great stretch 
of our territory for an unknown length of time. 

The enemy has not yet managed to reach the 
Somme, and although he has approached it at 
several points we have forced him back from it 



170 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

at others. We have even heard occasionally that 
his offensive was losing force, although his troops 
continue to fight fiercely. I admit that this seems 
doubtful to me. Unfortunately the territories he 
has occupied are very rich in wheat. He will 
therefore have no trouble in provisioning himself. 
Nevertheless, his soldiers have had to endure 
great fatigue since their entry into Belgium, and 
the further they advance the more possible be- 
comes a diminution of their vigor. But this has 
not been observed in the recent battles. 

Let us indulge no delusion. The Germans still 
have a great superiority of numbers (we have 
never been told why) and in the automatic func- 
tioning of every officer and every soldier, with 
an astonishing sureness in the employment and 
maneuvering of armament. Let us not therefore 
abandon ourselves to hopes that might be pre- 
mature. It does not by any means appear that 
the German offensive has weakened. It will con- 
tinue in its stupendous force, but in each event 
of the war, of whatever kind, it must encounter, 
everywhere and incessantly, an unconquerable 
defensive that is ready to turn into an offensive 
at the proper moment. We have inexhaustible 
resources, and in our hearts there can be no 
weakening. 

The role of Paris at this juncture is perhaps 
rather difficult to determine. Everything seems 
to indicate that the intrenched camp cannot be 
invested, and the intelligent employment of avi- 
ators on such a long perimeter will give us de- 
cided advantage for defensive operations. More- 
over, like Antwerp, from which we shall probably 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 171 

have early news, Paris possesses a highly mobile 
army, which can choose the moment to strike its 
blow according to the movements of the enemy. 
I think there is no reason, at the moment, for 
carrying to greater lengths predictions that would 
be principally based on supposition. 

It is clear that, reasoning from the results of 
the first engagements, we have easily built up 
hopes that were too beautiful. Our soldiers were 
then attacking troops less redoubtable than those 
which had been reserved for the gigantic effort 
of the great drive on Paris. At that time we 
thought that it would be necessary for them to 
shatter our line of defense in order to enter the 
country. We were given to understand that in- 
vasion from the direction of Lille was not very 
dangerous. Opinion has probably changed on 
this point. The enormous tide has overflowed us 
from a direction where it was not expected and 
as a result has more easily ravaged the country. 
It has spread further and more rapidly than we 
should have thought possible in so short a time. 
Every day is marked by combats in which we 
sometimes give ground, to renew incessantly the 
effort that may give us the advantage on the 
morrow. This much, beyond dispute, is gained 
already, that the difficulties of the march across 
Belgium are now complicated by the uninter- 
rupted battle that must be fought up to Paris, 
and when they are here, if that must be, it will 
be the turn of the armies of the provinces and of 
Paris to combine their efforts in the aim to strike 
the enemy on a line so long that he cannot suc- 
cessfully resist. 



172 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 

It has not come to that, but we must have the 
courage to consider every possibility, especially 
when final success depends on a power of endur- 
ance that ought to be unlimited. We are aiding 
our Russian allies at this moment by drawing on 
ourselves all the desperate force of the blows of 
an enemy who will have to turn back against our 
allies at the very moment when our resistance 
will have exhausted the best of his strength. Our 
British friends have come to our aid with the 
comfort of an immovable stoicism in this most 
cruel part of our common task. They have en- 
dured the fire without flinching and as fast as 
they fall we see them replaced. Those reverses 
which they have made glorious, in company with 
us, are so many acts of aid to Russia, who is 
advancing with the stride of a giant — making her 
way while Germany finds herself, from moment 
to moment, held in check on her march to Paris. 

Though the task that rests upon us is so mani- 
fest, so difficult, so long, so incomparably agoniz- 
ing, who will dare to say that we must not accept 
it? And it is not enough to accept the infliction; 
we invoke it, we run to meet it, we offer ourselves 
to its blows, we pray that they may be redoubled, 
in order that the day may be hastened when 
fortune, weary of scourging us, will come to know 
that there is a soul in us that cannot be destroyed, 
that nothing can force to yield. If there were 
no Russia, if there were no England, as long as 
there remained a Frenchman he would have no 
right to surrender. But there is a Russia and 
an England who have sworn, as we have, never 
to surrender, never to accept the law of the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 173 

Kaiser. They have said it and they will keep 
their word, knowing well that our resolution 
is no less unwavering than theirs. What! A 
German Empire from the Pyrenees to the Ural 
Mountains? That surpasses the very bounds of 
madness. What will happen, then? It will hap- 
pen, if the worst must come, that our country 
will endure trials even worse than she has known 
in the evil hours of our history, but that thus 
we shall make way, through our endurance, for 
the day when Europe will be fully delivered, by 
us and by our friends and allies, from a power 
of murderous tyranny that cannot coexist with 
independence or with honor in civilized society. 

August 31, 1914. 



All Our Efforts 

... I know that the greatest sacrifices are 
made easily in words, and in the best of faith, 
and that very brave men cannot escape a moment 
of trembling when the hour comes to pay the 
inexorable debt. But the needs of France are 
such that even the most timid cannot hesitate. 
The government of the National Defense, in 1870, 
had said, "Not an inch of our territory, not a 
stone of our fortresses." We know but too well 
what followed. This is no longer the time to 
pronounce heroic words the purpose of which 
weakens under the terrible affliction of the suf- 
ferings from invasion. We are at the point where 
we must act, where we must live our heroism 
without even needing to put it into words, and 



174 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

from this point of view there is not a Frenchman, 
whether old man, woman, or child, who is not a 
soldier. It is for each one to search himself and 
to promise himself in silence to lend all his sup- 
port. What need we of external manifestations 
which are only vain expenditures of energy? Let 
us subordinate everything to the salvation of 
France. The rest can count no longer. 

France is a history, a life, an idea which has 
taken its place in the world, and the bit of soil 
whence this history, this life, this idea has radi- 
ated cannot be sacrificed without sealing the tomb 
over ourselves and our children and the genera- 
tions that shall be born of them. And since no 
man of France could accept this ghastly end of 
so great a destiny, it remains for the men to 
fight to the last, and for the others to accept their 
trials and to offer all that they have, in order 
to sustain and aid and hearten each one of our 
soldiers facing the enemy. To what should we 
be first attached, of all that our ancestors have 
bequeathed to us, if not to the land itself which 
their valor and their labor made to blossom? 
What interest could we put above the very soil 
out of which what we call France has sprung? 
And if this is so, why encumber ourselves with 
concerns, from now on secondary, which, unre- 
lated to the salvation of France, had held our 
interest ? 

Such are the thoughts that haunt me at the 
hour when it is announced that the German 
hordes may soon be approaching the intrenched 
camp of Paris. Paris is the capital of France, 
as well as one of the capitals of humanity. It is 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 175 

a noble meeting-place for the powers of the human 
mind. But it is a camp of war at the same time. 
Its role in war is of high importance, but its 
role in the present war is by no means what it 
was in 1870. In the first place, this is true be- 
cause, as I said a moment since, our armies are 
operating freely on our territory; and second, be- 
cause we have a great reserve of men who have 
not yet been employed, and because it is only 
necessary to send them into the battle in order 
that, with the aid of our allies, final victory may 
crown our efforts. 

September 2, 1914. 



Into the Provinces for Victoey 

• . . With the government at Bordeaux, we 
begin a new phase of the war as it follows its 
course— a renewal of the war in the Provinces, 
as in the time of Gambetta and Freycinet. The 
same struggle against the same German invasion, 
with the capital of France reduced to a simple 
war-camp, with France herself — the Provinces, as 
we say — taking defense into her own hands, con- 
trary to the traditional method of political and 
administrative concentration under which she has 
lived. 

How changed the men and the times! Then 
we were defending our honor, because the tradi- 
tion of the race necessitated it. We were fighting 
to save the integrity of our territory, since our 
complete defeat forced us to abandon two French 
provinces which the peace to come must give back 



176 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

to us at the price of whatever suffering and sacri- 
fice and blood fate may demand. 

And here after forty-four years I am at Bor- 
deaux again, in front of the same theater that 
I had not seen since 1871, looking for the men 
to whom was reserved the sorrow of surviving, 
and not finding them. Who remembers that Jules 
Simon had in his pocket, on his arrival, an order 
for the arrest of Gambetta? In the provinces as 
at Paris, foreign war and civil war raged together. 
I call up these sad memories of past dissensions 
only that I may contrast them with the magnifi- 
cent comfort that animates our hearts at sight 
of the truly fraternal union of all Frenchmen 
of to-day. Gambetta maintained the war against 
the invasion under the most grievous blows from 
an opposition without mercy. Contrast the pres- 
ent attitude of all the parties in the presence of 
a government of which no one demands anything 
except that it exhaust all means for the defense 
and show itself capable of the most efficacious 
employment of them. 

... If the National Assembly of 1871 was 
forced to submit to the peace of Frankfort, it 
was because the distressing diminution in our 
territory left us still enough of the land for us 
to find it possible, under the strain of terrible 
misfortunes, to restore our France, to give her 
life again, to see her flourish once more in the 
grace and nobility and beauty which have given 
her the charm she has as a great home of man- 
kind. 

Too often we ourselves, divided in the hasty 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 177 

pursuit of an unselfish ideal, neglected in favor 
of secondary considerations the higher interests 
to which it was our first duty to devote ourselves. 
Nevertheless, in spite of so many efforts that were 
feeble, in spite of much noble blood that was 
lost, France still remained, and we could leave to 
generations to come the great task of the just 
fulfilment of our hopes. It was in our thought 
that France had been, that France was, and that 
France must be. There was with us, whatever 
terrible blows we may have passed through, a 
hope confident enough to enable the men who 
have given something of themselves to the en- 
nobling work of perpetuating France to go to 
their rest in the peaceful conviction of a for- 
tunate part of their duty accomplished. 

And this, it appears, is precisely what the Ger- 
man race can tolerate no longer. We exist, and 
it is an unpardonable crime. Day and night they 
demand, for the expansion of their oppressive 
thought, the fields of peoples neighboring and far 
away in the desire of Germanizing them. What 
is France doing there, when the Teuton might 
there indulge his low pleasure of the flesh ? What ! 
The great blow of Bismarck did not make her 
vanish? In 1875 the man of iron had a feeling 
that he must put an end to us without longer 
delay. Why did he not go on against the op- 
position of Great Britain and Russia? He did not 
dare. "I do dare," says Wilhelm II; by order of 
the giant Germany it is forbidden to the pigmies 
of Gaul to live and to think as they will. 

The Kaiser has spoken, under the inspiration 
of his "ancient God," as he dares to say in tragi- 



178 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

comic phrase — for lie is still in the service of 
the dark divinities who thirst for human blood — 
and without the need of even a mendacious pre- 
text, the Hegelian philosophers, Wagnerian poets, 
erudite professors, thinkers of every depth and 
every breadth, Marxian socialists, workers of all 
ranks and of every kind of sentimentality, de- 
generate sons of Goethe and Schiller, who curse 
them from their tombs, have come obediently to 
line up with their rifles and cannon and machine- 
guns, under the swords of their exalted Junkers, 
to go over the Vosges and kill the hope of living 
in justice and liberty. 

Victory! They have already razed cities like 
Louvain, burned villages, tortured and murdered 
old men and women and children, and this with 
no hatred in their hearts, they say, in virtue of 
the scientific method of von der Goltz which 
commands the infliction of misery in order that 
the struggle may be abbreviated in the interest 
of humanity. Down on your knees, peoples of 
the earth, it is the great breath of pan-Germanism 
which passes over you. 

So, whatever may come, we can no longer say 
that we shall have the choice between peace, more 
or less burdensome, and the continuation of the 
war, since it is between the life and death of 
France that we have to choose, that we shall have 
to choose until the end. One single question: can 
we sanction the end of our race on the soil its 
history has made sacred? 

In Germany there have been forty years of 
frenzied preparation. As for us, have we always 
lent an ear to the many warnings that were given 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 179 

us? This is not the time to open the question, 
although the past is sounding in our ears at this 
moment. Always heedless, always confident in 
sudden appeals to the springs of our energy, we 
have talked a great deal and sometimes done too 
little. Vacillation, negligence, delay over ways 
and means, adjournment of decisions, easy ac- 
ceptance of approximate solutions, disdain of 
rigorous methods, love of improvisation — there 
have sometimes been, perhaps, too many short- 
comings in us, while an implacable enemy was 
sharpening his steel against us. 

Very brilliant in the first encounters, but often 
very imprudent, also, from excess of valor, our 
decimated soldiers, though not ceasing to impose 
heavy losses on the enemy, have had to give 
ground on the left wing, without ever ceasing to 
fight, under the stupendous drive of numbers 
automatically disciplined. In this retreat foot by 
foot, where partial successes were mingled with 
reverses, the ground was fiercely disputed, so 
much so that at the first contact with the en- 
trenched camp of Paris the German advance- 
guards had to turn to face an adversary beaten 
back but not vanquished. 

Here ends, one might say, the first part of the 
campaign, in which the Germans may claim the 
advantage over us of ground gained, at the price 
of incalculable losses, but without dealing us such 
a blow as might have seriously hampered us in 
our military resources. Our armies of the front 
line have not at any time been broken, but have 
refilled their ranks according to their needs, while 
the armies of the second line are moving to aid 



180 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

tliem. The army assembled at Paris having al- 
ready announced its presence by offensive tactics 
and General Joffre having succeeded in disen- 
gaging himself from a threatening situation, the 
enemy, who was pushing on by forced marches to 
direct his efforts against our capital, has seen 
lined up before him a mighty battle-front which 
he had to attack at any cost. For four days the 
battle has been in progress, and important suc- 
cesses announce that the admirable tenacity of 
our troops has almost broken the driving force 
of the invader. We must not exaggerate, but the 
mere fact of a considerable retreat of the Germans 
on the sector of Paris is an event of which the 
military and moral importance is manifest. 

Nowhere are we in retreat. The "French 
fury," aided by the marvelous resistance of the 
British soldier, has everywhere reappeared. Let 
us accept these successes, which are still only 
signs of ultimate victory, with calm and confi- 
dence, as we have accepted the reverses. Victory 
is on its way. We are not at the end of our trials, 
since fate has willed it that once more Europe 
should take the soil of France for her battle- 
ground. But the Allies have promised one another 
never to make a separate peace. It is the certain 
earnest of success. 

September 11, 1914. 

TOWAKDS THE END OF THE SCOTJKGE 

The retreat of the invading armies, under the 
pressure of Anglo-French troops, is certainly be- 
ing effected with the precipitation of a rout. 



FKANCE FACING GERMANY 181 

Everywhere the enemy is retiring in disorder, 
leaving behind everything that impedes his flight, 
though we cannot determine precisely the full 
causes of his disarray. 

The seven-day battle is a great Anglo-French 
victory, the consequences of which cannot yet be 
fully judged. 

. . . Let us be careful, nevertheless, not to think 
that we can count on an interrupted series of suc- 
cesses leading straight to the final crushing of 
the aggressor. The curtain is falling on the 
horrible scenes of foreign invasion in Belgium and 
in France. A mortal blow has been dealt to the 
prestige of the "invincible" Kaiser who had 
never fought a battle. We have made him recoil, 
dislodged his army all along the line, and our 
indefatigable soldiers, in hot pursuit, are forcing 
him back at the point of the bayonet. But it 
would be madness to imagine that we have fin- 
ished with an adversary who is going to find new 
forces, and even powerful ones, on his uninvaded 
territory. A great part of his military stores are 
still intact. Automatic discipline will soon regain 
its power. The struggle will still be long and full 
of unforeseen fluctuations. The stake is too great 
for the German Emperor suddenly to make up his 
mind to abandon the game. I do him the honor 
to believe that he will offer a desperate resistance, 
but destiny holds him by the throat. He is in 
the hands of the inevitable. 

The German is not so quick as the Frenchman 
to recover under a blow of misfortune, but he has 
military discipline in his blood and a natural 



182 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

spirit of submission to his leaders. He can be 
made, in tragic hours, into a redoubtable machine. 
The forces of the Empire, still intact, offer enor- 
mous resources for resistance and even, it may 
be, for the offensive. Let us make ready for the 
great efforts which are still to be demanded of 
us. Serious mistakes have been made on our side. 
We might have paid dearly for them; but fortune, 
who owed us a revenge, has allowed us to repair 
them in an astonishing fashion. Let us try to 
leave nothing more to the unforeseen. Our mili- 
tary leaders have just undergone the most severe 
trials victoriously. It is for us to give them 
confidence by granting them the benefit of the 
patience and fortitude of which they will have 
inevitable need. 

September 15, 1914. 



V 



THE FIRST WINTER CAMPAIGN 
THE YSER— THE WAR IN THE TRENCHES 

The Winter Campaign 

"To my last horse," said Willielm II. "Until 
the end/' we have gravely announced. And Mr. 
Winston Churchill said yesterday: "We are re- 
solved to win if it should cost the last pound 
sterling and the last man." These words are 
pledges, especially when they are pronounced in 
full knowledge of the cause. 

. . . Let us prepare to maintain, in patience and 
fortitude, the desperate struggle which the arro- 
gance of the Kaiser imposes on the people who 
intend to save on the fields of battle, the right 
of all Europe to independence with honor. He 
announces, as do we, that nothing will make him 
give up. But the conditions of the struggle con- 
demn him to the exhaustion of his forces within 
a period which I am not capable of calculating, 
while our advantages, thanks to the increasing 
aid of our allies, can only be augmented. He will 
persist as long as it is possible for him, his only 
chance being to weary and dishearten us. It is 
for us to show him that we are of too hard a metal 
for him to nurse the hope of wearing us down. 

183 



184 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

I wish lie could come and go about incognito 
among us; could visit the cities, the little towns, 
and the fields; could interrogate all sorts of 
people and look into their minds; and compare 
our feelings with those of his subjects. We have 
been disappointed in our first hopes, which, before 
the great battles, were for a relatively easy vic- 
tory. From the north there came upon us an 
avalanche of steel which pulverized everything 
in its way to Paris. An important part of the 
French territory is still under the feet of the 
raging hordes who go about scattering fire and 
death. From the invaded districts there arrive 
among us every day bands of pitiable refugees 
still stupefied with horror. We listen to stories 
from them such as freeze the blood in our veins, 
and, fraternal duty accomplished, all of them, 
men and women, lift up their heads and calmly 
speak the word of the day: ' ' Forward. ' ' Their 
sons, their brothers, and their husbands are back 
there in the field in the tornado of steel. The 
refugees think only of them. They call them to 
memory. They see them. If their soldiers come 
back they will be mad with joy. If they do not 
come back, they will be firm, without a word, and 
they will hold always, always, until there does 
not remain a soldier. 

To this great calmness of resolute minds, to this 
quiet perseverance in strength in which all the 
energies of our being are combined, what does the 
enemy oppose? Scenes of mad savagery, mur- 
ders, punishments that spare not even infancy, 
summary executions of civilians, a furnace from 
which emerge the towers of the cathedral of 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 185 

Rheims — such are the manifestations of German 
chivalry among us. We are forced to look on, 
with tortured hearts, but we have in our breasts 
a flame of hope that will not be extinguished. 
We cannot be vanquished since we shall never 
accept our defeat, for in this battle for the very 
life of France we have made up our minds to 
save at least her honor. Our endurance must 
therefore outlast the German terror, until Russia 
and England, who are still very far from having 
furnished all the forces that they will be able to 
raise, shall enable us in common to complete the 
work of defeating savagery. We must recognize 
and prepare ourselves for whatever this work 
may require in sufferings patiently and nobly 
borne. The long and hard winter campaign will 
bring us only too many trials. From this moment 
let us lift up our hearts and let us act in all things 
so that we may deserve the victory before we 
conquer it. 

September 28, 1914. 

In the Militaky Dispatches 

A fine school-book could be made by merely 
representing episodes from this war as they ap- 
pear in the citations in military dispatches. 

It is there, in reality, that we see the heroic soul 
of our French soldier appear in its splendor. 

To make a hero, transport to the field of battle 
any unknown Frenchman, one of those whom you 
elbow day by day without pausing to let your 
glance rest on them. You do not know him; he 
does not know himself. He may be an average 



186 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

man in his virtues and faults. He! will pass 
through life, unknown to the public, with only the 
value of a figure for the statistician, and none 
of those who have elbowed him will suspect that 
in certain tragic circumstances something will be 
aroused in this modest soul that will lift him into 
the highest rank. How many such are there 
among us 1 ? I do not know. No one can know. 
What the facts show is that as soon as the event 
requires it, upon this ground, fertile in the glory 
of our ancestors, heroism will spring into view. 

I say heroism because it is not enough to call 
it courage. Courage is the lot of all brave men 
who have to choose between duty and dishonor. 
It is only the very brave men who can acknowl- 
edge that they have been afraid. Thus Turenne 
is often cited. Just yesterday I was reading in 
the memoirs of Agrippa d'Aubigne the story of 
an affair in which the soldier-author took to flight 
with a speed which he was possibly pleased to 
exaggerate. The next day his prowess in the 
thickest of the fight gained the admiration of all 
who beheld. And he philosophizes, "God does 
not give us courage; He only lends it to us." 
That is to say, a set of conditions, external and 
internal, is necessary to determine the moment. 

Among such conditions, the love of a just and 
great cause, the passion for it, is the prime basis 
of action. Agrippa in flight surely did not give 
up his devotion to a noble cause. There had 
come a moment when his muscles and his nerves 
turned traitor to his thought, and the very fact 
that he sets it down against himself shows 
clearly enough that in his eyes that moment had 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 187 

the appearance of only a vulgar accident. Such 
are the fluctuations in military action, such as 
may come to many a combatant, and even, as 
may be seen in the example above, to the most 
strictly trained. Courage is, in one word, the 
master virtue of the human soul because it is 
the active expression ofi one's self-respect, a 
supreme effort of honor. 

Does the intermittent peace of our civilization 
have the effect of favoring and strengthening 
military courage, or of softening and enervating 
it? It has wholly created civic courage, one of 
the most noble traits of the man who is called 
upon, in the silence of the office, without witnesses, 
to make a decision on which may depend a whole 
future of misery or of happiness. He who, to 
follow the strict precepts of conscience, calmly 
sacrifices, along with all the social rewards of 
the day, the interests of the beings who are dear 
to him, is a hero who will be surpassed by no 
other, but who may be equaled. 

For military courage remains in all its grandeur 
and beauty. Is it not the greatest sacrifice to 
give all of one's self for a noble cause? And 
when w^ould the sacrifice be more complete than 
in the flower of youth, when all the sensations of 
one's being are expanding, in quivering expecta- 
tion, to the throng of radiant hopes of which the 
adolescent does not yet know the secret? He 
believes, he hopes, he waits. Whatever life may 
give him, this is a sacred moment, most beautiful 
in its promises, still without the shortcomings of 
reality. All is bloom, all is song, everything in- 
vites him to live. What of the young man who 



188 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

is summoned to throw away all his dreams of 
fragile beauty more precious than the known 
truth of things, because a cause superior to all 
others commands it? 

It is his native land which asks the sacrifice, 
and hesitation is all but crime when she has 
spoken. His native land — mysterious words 
which hold a man charmed in a magic circle of 
emotions, of ideas, of traditions, written or 
merely felt, from which he cannot and would not 
escape, for such nobility descends to him from 
his great ancestors that it would be criminal not 
to preserve the funds of it for the generations to 
come. The defense of the family home is right 
and natural. Every man will give himself up to 
it entirely, but there is still some selfishness, even 
in the most complete sacrifice for something 
touching him so closely. The native land is a 
glory to all of us and has been so since time im- 
memorial, a common ideal in which all can and 
must participate in the collaborated effort beyond 
estimate which we have received the splendid 
duty of continuing. 

In peace, labor in all its forms is an aid. Every 
effort does something for the country. In war, 
there is demanded the total effort of a life-time 
concentrated in one day, in one hour, in one dizzy 
moment of superhuman grandeur! And this is 
honor, this is death more beautiful than life, this 
is the feeling of transport that, under the hail of 
grape-shot and in the thunder of shells, a silent 
will is master throughout all the uproar and that 
one is writing a beautiful page of history when 
one says simply to the cannon, "I will not yield." 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 189 

Eest assured that lie feels this, our French 
trooper crouching on the bare ground, where, 
rifle in hand, he awaits the moment to leap for- 
ward. What regrets of the good days when he 
could see the enemy! Now the enemy is over there 
hidden in his trench, showing no haste to come 
out of it. When he thinks that he has shattered 
everything with his artillery, perhaps he will 
take the risk. Our trooper must stay at his post, 
under bursting shrapnel and exploding shells. It 
is a time of agonizing immobility, cruel to live 
through. There are those who look at the leader, 
as if seeking a manifestation of fortitude. Others 
interrogate their neighbor, sometimes to be stupe- 
fied, like one of my friends recently, at finding 
him dead from a ball in the temple, dead without 
cry or movement. The greater number think of 
what is going to happen in a little while and 
tell themselves, with set teeth, that the earliest 
possible moment will be the best. It is said that 
the Germans do not understand our language. 
Well, when they hear the command, "Charge with 
the bayonet!" they know well enough what that 
means, for they do not take long to show us, by 
their backs, that they have understood. 

But the hour of passive courage is past. The 
order has resounded: Forward! It is the French 
soldier's moment. The German rabbit's hole is 
not to his liking. He needs the open air, with a 
good weapon and one or more Bodies to look at. 
Everybody has rushed forward. The drama, the 
real drama, is beginning, for the worth of man- 
hood and the courage of action, heated by the 
fluctuations of the combat, is going, in flashes of 



190 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

individual bravery, to be manifested by astonish- 
ing feats of arms, the memory of which unfor- 
tunately will be lost, for the good reason that 
everyone is at his task and that there are no 
spectators. 

We have no need to depreciate our enemy. He 
exposes himself sufficiently, by his own deeds, to 
the reprobation of the civilized world. As for me, 
I am content to say merely that murderers of 
women and children may look like fine soldiers, 
but that they are inevitably cowards. I am not at 
all astonished, therefore, to know that they are 
afraid of the bayonet and that they take flight 
when they must meet us man to man and look 
straight into our eyes. But in the frays in con- 
fused masses all sorts of things happen and the 
varied fortunes of encounters result in groups of 
fighters among whom appalling dramas are 
played. 

In these the Frenchman is at his best. In him 
there will suddenly come into action, evoked by 
the tumult of violence, unequaled qualities of 
prowess such as will call forth from the depth 
of his being heroic virtues which, in the sim- 
plicity of his heart, he did not know he possessed. 
There was needed the revealing fire of this un- 
precedented drama in which all his energies are 
concentrated in one instant of time, like those of 
the god crashing in the thunderbolt, in order that 
there should be born in his heart the will and the 
power of a Titan. It is a power before which 
everything gives way. He wills, and he acts : the 
rest is not in his reckoning. The word danger 
has no longer a meaning to him. If his comrades 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 191 

weaken, this man, possibly a timid one in ordinary 
life, stops the fugitives with a word or gesture 
or act which dominates them all, imbues them 
with the sensation of a power against which noth- 
ing can prevail, leads them back into combat full 
of a new courage, and never relaxes until they 
have won the victory. 

And one might almost think that death is afraid 
of this unconquerable being, for, when he defies 
her, in the thickest of the hail of steel, he some- 
times seems to bear a charmed life. If wounded, 
he continues to fight, saving his comrade or his 
officer already lying on the ground, drags him to 
the nearest place of aid, and, to exhaust the last 
drop of his heroism, returns sometimes to his own 
death. Dead or living, he is truly to be envied; 
he has lived through all that life can give him. 
Let him have the noblest place in our memories. 
Perhaps he wished to die, because he felt that 
no reward could recompense his sacrifice. If he 
lives we cannot honor him better than by saying 
simply what he has done, without spoiling it by 
comment. 

This, reader, is why I recommend to you the 
noble and solemn pride which the list of citations 
in the army dispatches invokes. In them you 
will find the high lesson of the painful days in 
which we are living. I am unwilling to mention 
any name because that would be an injustice to 
all the others. Eead them, I repeat, and say 
whether your pride does not burn within you for 
being of the same blood from which so many 
uncelebrated heroes have sprung. Eead them; 
once you have begun, you will not pause. Here 



192 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

is a man who stayed by his gun and met death 
when his soldiers were giving way, and by the 
miracle of mute example brought them back. 
Here is another who, with his knife, extracted 
the ball that had struck him, and went back into 
the fire until the end. A third, when the shells 
gave out for his guns, leaped into the trenches 
to fight with the infantry; and another with a 
broken arm or a shoulder torn away kept on 
urging his men against the enemy. Still another 
leads his company into the hottest of the fight 
and when they are obliged to retire remains to 
carry back the wounded and receives the ball 
which he had so gloriously won. I should never 
finish with the chronicle. 

Unknown yesterday, these men will be unknown 
to-morrow. To-day is their brief day. Let it be 
theirs in full. A lofty salutation to those lofty 
hearts! They have not waited for the final vic- 
tory to make us again into one nation. They have 
lived, and they have allowed us to live, through 
the history of France condensed in a soldier's day, 

October 9, 1914. 

To Maintain Unity 

... In the sphere of spontaneous action we 
enjoy a considerable superiority over Germany. 
There is no public opinion in the Empire of 
Wilhelm II. The German people, trained in 
servility, is composed of men who allowed them- 
selves to be molded to all purposes. They can be 
accommodated to anything except independence. 
They receive full profit from their servitude when 
they are under masters like Frederick II or Bis- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 193 

marck, but in the absence of the conductor's 
baton, we must expect nothing from them except 
flat subjection. More especially, we must not be 
surprised at the insolent arrogance of their 
leaders. To produce an excess of tyranny in one 
group there is required an excess of debasement 
in the other. No one in the popular masses of 
Germany would probably have been willing to 
take the initiative in the war, but the implacable 
feudal system which drives them in herds, having 
carefully developed in the depths of their dark- 
ened minds the germs of the fury of conquest 
which was the heritage of primitive hordes, each 
of them rushes to his fate with songs that are 
not very much superior to the bellowing of the 
beast led to the slaughter-house. Before suc- 
cumbing, the German will offer himself the 
supreme joy of trampling and tearing and slash- 
ing everything he finds on his path, and for this, 
license is given him; it is the sole manifestation 
of individualism that is left to him. And even so 
he has more pleasure in giving himself up to it 
Toy order, and scientifically. 

Surely we must be of another race, since our 
natural inclination is to look men in the face, and 
for this purpose to hold ourselves erect. This 
was the source of great trouble for the govern- 
ments of the past. In revenge, when the highest 
interests of the endangered country and the great 
inspiration of a noble idea has welded together 
our individual desires, recently so diverse, into 
one solid will, there is now no power that can 
withstand the formidable sledge-hammer that 
falls with the might of an entire people behind it. 



194 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

It is herein that we discover, in spite of too 
many shortcomings in methodical preparation, 
the superiority of voluntary unity in action over 
the purely mechanical organization of the German 
people. Mistakes of the past, too often evident, 
may to-day leave our administration to struggle 
with immeasurable difficulties. The administra- 
tion will deal well or ill with them according as 
it has the courage to break from its ancient paths 
or as, under the eye of a minister more prompt 
to follow than to lead, it continues obstinately in 
the methods which, having caused the damage, 
cannot effect its reparation. 

In either case there is something that will save 
the cause; it is the admirable unity of minds and 
hearts for the salvation of the countrv. And in 
regard to this spontaneous unity of all the ener- 
gies of a people concentrated in one will for the 
simultaneous exertion of all arms and all hearts, 
we may be permitted to say with pride that no 
person has imposed it on us, and that no person 
would have had the power to do so, as Gambetta 
learned to his sorrow in a day when civil discords 
so cruelly aggravated the terrible wounds of 
foreign war. 

No, the hard lesson has brought its rewards, 
and it is from the hearts of all that has suddenly 
mounted the splendid flame which has melted 
quickly all our souls and all our wills into one 
thunderbolt which will win the undisputed vic- 
tory of to-morrow. No man, no government, no 
party can claim exclusive credit for it. The 
French people has taken its cause into its own 
hands. Placed under the necessity of saving 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 195 

itself, it has shown that self-confidence, like the 
power of action, springs from the depths of the 
heart. It has made its soldiers, having breathed 
the pnrest of its sonl into them and the "best of 
that invincible resolution which renders them 
superior to any misfortune. It knows that its 
work will be long and hard. It knows also that 
the work will not be above its powers. It wills, 
and it acts. Aided by the unselfish assistance 
of some, and hindered by the misunderstanding 
of others, it pursues its task without weakening, 
hoping for no other recompense than the main- 
tenance of the life of France in the heart of 
civilization. 

I say the life of France, all the life of France, 
in the multiple aspects of its thought and action. 
That is what is represented in the obscure 
trooper, our son or brother in the mud of the 
trenches, risking his life twenty-four hours a day 
against the chance of a bit of shrapnel in order 
that the radiance of France may not be ex- 
tinguished. That is what is represented, in every 
kind of public activity for the common cause, by 
all those who, with their hearts turned toward 
the field where the stupendous tragedy is being 
played, do nothing and say nothing, in their for- 
getfulness of self, that is not meant solely to 
increase the physical and moral force of that good 
soldier. 

October 20, 1914. 

All of Feance 

I cannot take my mind from those men who 
are under fire. On a wavering line extending 



196 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

from the North Sea to tlie end of the Vosges, 
night and day, they are burrowing in mud-holes, 
shivering, benumbed, but with hearts armored 
with an ardent bravery that makes them smile 
at cold, or hunger, or death. They do not pause 
to contemplate themselves, to analyze their feel- 
ings, to pronounce philosophic judgments on 
themselves or on those who send them out to the 
sufferings and dangers of the soldier's calling. 
They have aged parents whom they love, wives 
and children who cling to their hearts with fibers 
of painful sensitiveness, they have a city or a 
town where they were born and where they hoped 
to die, a countryside tender in their memory, 
where their childhood and youth were passed, 
they have a great mother-country above all, ever 
present in their thoughts, whose history gives 
birth in them to devoted respect and love, and to 
hopes of grandeur. More or less cultured, more 
or less thoughtful, more or less quick to be moved 
or to grow hardened or to withstand trial, more 
or less impassive when the somber reaper takes 
his red harvest, they are in the action to which 
they are called by the poetry of the higher life, 
by the superhuman impulse of everyone who hurls 
his will into the battle like a cannon-ball. 

At one moment they are heroes, and in the next 
but children amused among perils that have 
aspects of romance in them. For in a single day 
they must, according to the luck of the hour, run 
the gamut from the fierce strain of surcharged 
energy to the soft release of tender sensations. 
We think of the soldier as always at grips with 
the enemy. It would be but too glorious if he 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 197 

could settle his account in one furious plunge of 
battle. How much more difficult is the courage 
of imperturbable passivity under the hail of ex- 
ploding shells! How much harder is the trial of 
suffering in unrelaxing suspense designed to 
weaken the resistance, bit by bit, of body and of 
will! Even outside of the battle there is no 
moment which is not one of real action, since 
there is nothing that has not its relation to the 
desired end. And if the happy chance of a brief 
moment of rest may come, the momentary repos- 
session of one's self, the temporary return to the 
quiet of gay conversation, the relaxation of mak- 
ing fun of the enemy in anecdotes of the war, 
will all be quickly given up without complaint, 
and thrown into the list of things abolished, as 
soon as the tranquil peace in his heart is sum- 
moned to make way for the violence of warlike 
virtue, to respond to the demands of the great 
tragedy. It is thus that is forged, on the im- 
placable anvil of the hours, the firm metal of 
unconquerable will. It is thus that characters are 
tempered. Have you seen, at the good armorer's 
in Toledo, how a blade of friable steel becomes 
instantly unbreakable when plunged for one mo- 
ment into the marvelous vat of water? It is like 
the soul of our soldier under fire. 

. . . The Boche, who is but a piece of mechan- 
ism in the hands of a skilled mechanic, has come 
to recognize him very well, our French soldier, — 
enough not to seek for conversation at close 
quarters, — but he will never really understand 
him. Yesterday a letter from the front told me 



198 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

how our troopers made gay one evening by shak- 
ing lanterns from the end of a high stick, by 
means of strings attached, in order to make the 
Bodies throw away their artillery munitions. 
How could we explain to those people the state 
of mind that produces this carelessness of amused 
youth, this playing with peril for a revenge in 
advance over the shells of to-morrow 1 The 
placid Boche, who knows only the pleasures of 
unreasoned obedience, will make a good appear- 
ance under fire, like the others, but he is too scien- 
tifically machine-like to live the full, intense life 
of the battle, to throw into the action, like his 
adversary, all the eager joys of the life which he 
proudly brings as an offering to death. 

Some of them, it is true, are capable of or- 
ganized daring. Under the lead of a resolute 
captain they will make audacious dashes, though 
without the enthusiasm that characterizes our 
men; but once the captain is missing, the re- 
sources of their energy are quickly exhausted. 
With us, if the leader falls, someone comes for- 
ward to set things right immediately, to supply 
on the moment what is lacking, to change the 
course of the adventure by some stroke of daring 
fancy which disconcerts the adversary. With 
such soldiers one is never at the end of his sur- 
prises. No one among them claims to know any- 
thing, for their greatest joy is to improvise a 
way of warfare as the moment requires. What a 
pleasure to astonish the leader, who, knowing 
them well, is ready for almost anything, but who 
nevertheless cannot stifle, once in a while, at 
perilous moments, a cry of admiration! And yet 



FRANCE FACING' GERMANY 199 

a person who should not discover anything be- 
yond that, on our present battlefront, would 
prove that he has not looked closely enough at 
the Frenchman fighting to-day. 

Daring and gay at once, the man whose an- 
cestors ran over all Europe singing the Marseil- 
laise without losing an opportunity to fall upon 
the enemy, does not appear, perhaps, very dif- 
ferent from the soldier of the Crimea, of Italy, 
or of 1870, when other leaders would have 
assured him the victory. But circumstances have 
profoundly changed the hearts and souls of our 
fighters. At the "beginning of the war of 1870 
it was not yet the safety of the country that was 
at stake, and later we were fighting at such a 
disadvantage that it is a miracle that our im- 
provised armies could do otherwise than glori- 
ously succumb. We shall never praise enough 
the revival of resolution, that miracle accom- 
plished by Gambetta and M. de Freycinet that 
was necessary to lead to the victory of Coulmiers. 
I have heard it said that Wilhelm I, who had 
seen the French soldier in the worst of disasters, 
said one day to the man who was going to succeed 
him, "Remember, my son, that though in the 
course of the great war our successes, by the grace 
of God, astonished the world, there were never- 
theless hours when, in spite of all our favorable 
chances, I was in doubt of the final issue. " It is 
probably the highest pfaise that has ever been 
given to the French soldier. Perhaps we have 
the right to invoke this high testimony at the 
hour when Wilhelm II, having madly tempted 
fortune, after the completion of preparations 



200 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

which were not answered by his adversary with 
equal foresight, is hurling himself against so 
many resisting obstacles in his path, and among 
them the smile of the French soldier. 

Three months ago no one thought of the war 
so soon to come, neither those who were charged 
with preparing to meet it nor those who, at the 
present hour, are falling like heroes as they 
drive back the enemy foot by foot from our rav- 
aged plains. There was a national army on paper, 
where it made a fairly fine appearance. What 
was really the exact state of preparation this is 
not the hour to determine. I mention the question 
only as a reminder. If there are leaders who did 
not do their full duty, the soldiers themselves, 
who, with the great majority of Frenchmen, did 
not believe the war was possible, did not devote 
an extreme ardor to their period of military ser- 
vice from which the leaders — as I have said in the 
tribune before the Senate — were often unable to 
give more than a mediocre advantage. The pub- 
lic powers let them alone— always in the belief 
that that would never happen — and now what 
was never going to happen has suddenly come to 
pass. 

The mobilization was accomplished in perfect 
regularity which showed no ground for suspecting 
miscalculations. The soldiers of France, from all 
of France, took their places in line at the front, 
with tranquil hearts interrogating the horizon 
where the others were to appear. Yes, the sol- 
diers from all of France this time. It is really 
the armed nation, all of France in arms, that 
stands before the enemy. A new fact in history 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 201 

— every Frenchman called to the defense of his 
land! An immense rendez-vous of a people who 
had often sought to know themselves in peace 
and who came to discover themselves in war. Side 
by side, in the trenches, they look at each other, 
interrogate each other, already proud of the feats 
of arms w T ith which they are going to astound the 
mechanical Teuton. What they know best of their 
trade, in which many are novices, is that they have 
courage and will know how to use it. Because they 
have confidence in themselves to begin with, they 
soon feel that they can count on one another until 
the last. And there they are, glad to find them- 
selves all together in danger, close companions in 
the great battle for France, brothers in every 
thought and feeling, laughing and weeping to- 
gether in the same inspiration for their native 
land, living the life of their France, each for him- 
self and all together, without having ever under- 
stood her so well — there they are to give her their 
lives and disappointed only that they cannot do 
more. 

These are the soldiers of the new France, of that 
Republic which they have desired, without always 
knowing their desires exactly, but which they are 
now creating with their hands and with their wills. 
Yes, better than many an orator they have under- 
stood that rhetoric had had its day, and that des- 
tiny had reserved for them the hour to act. They 
enter into action happy and strong, proud indeed 
that they will withhold nothing of themselves. No 
machine-made butchers among them, nothing but 
noble hearts who can conceive nothing higher than 
the joy of self-sacrifice ! The soldiers of France 



202 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

have recovered their right place in history, by the 
side of their great ancestors. Like those of the 
year II, they bring to the combat, with the impro- 
visations of their valor, the sublime pride of men 
who will never surrender. 

Too ardent, they will learn — sometimes dearly 
— to calculate, and to moderate and restrain the 
enthusiasm of a bravery which needs to be con- 
trolled by wisdom. Their officers told them this 
from the beginning. They were not willing to 
listen, but were too much given to believe that they 
would do better following their own enthusiasm. 
Brought back by the voice of experience, they have 
learned their lessons, and have adapted them- 
selves with admirable ease to conditions of battle 
which they had not dreamed of before. They have 
drawn nearer to their leaders through understand- 
ing them. In the common effort they must like 
each other in order to be of mutual aid. Gone are 
the prejudices of former days. No more mistrust, 
no more of those differences of opinion which are 
but the more serious if not put into words. There 
are priests who are officers, and priests who are 
privates. All men are of one thought, under the 
uniform of the French Eepublic, who does not 
make distinctions between her children. 

The soldiers need to feel, first, that their leader 
knows his profession; then that he can command 
his men, by personal power, and that he is good 
to them. After that, a word of command suffices. 
They will emulate each other in patience or in 
energy, as occasion demands. Alas, the officers 
themselves have sometimes the brilliant faults of 
the trooper. It is in the blood. They push the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 203 

curiosity of the enemy too far, and the moment 
they rise, expert marksmen have for their single 
function the task of putting them out of the com- 
bat. Thus our corps of officers, in which there 
were so many vacancies at the beginning of the 
war, has come to find itself, in certain units, pain- 
fully decreased. Nevertheless the soldier who 
has trained himself makes it a point of pride to 
ignore the fact. He will find his own way, will 
set right the comrades who arrive from the con- 
centration camp, will check one, and encourage 
another, will keep everybody in good humor, and 
will inspire such enthusiasm that when the mo- 
ment comes to go "over the top" each one will 
make it a point of honor to follow him — since it is 
impossible to get ahead of him. 

Go on in your good deeds, great unknown 
Frenchmen who will have no name in the glorious 
annals of your country; you have no need of his- 
torians to make you a place in the history of 
France. The place that you fill will be so large 
that perhaps there will be men some day who will 
be jealous because you have left no room. You 
who have believed, in the ranks, under the shell, 
that you could do nothing but give up your lives, 
know that beyond death even, you will remain liv- 
ing, and cherished, in the hearts of us whom you 
have saved. For it is you who truly are saving 
France, at this moment, or, if you prefer, it is 
France herself who, through you, is creating her 
destiny — France revived, regenerated, made 
young again, France better and more beautiful, 
into whom you are transfusing the purest of your 
life. Hail to you, good makers of the good new 



204 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

France! A greater and nobler land will witness 
that you have lived. 

October 27, 1914. 



War Note-Books 

. . . The other day a lieutenant-colonel, in 
front of his men crouching on the ground, was 
seriously wounded. The shells were raging. But 
three men instantly rushed forward and, with 
three rifles for a stretcher, tried to take the officer 
to a place of safety, without giving attention, for 
themselves, to the shells that were exploding. This 
is nothing as yet. Wait. They had to pass before 
the lines of soldiers who had orders not to quit 
their prone position. You must know that in these 
hearts there is something that is even superior to 
military orders. And all together, in a spontane- 
ous movement, these men arose, under the volleys 
of bursting steel, to present arms to their wounded 
colonel. And he himself, with his heart touched 
by an emotion which the pain of his wound could 
not overcome, endeavored to raise himself for the 
military salute ; but the paralyzed hand fell, and 
the gesture was more beautiful than if he had been 
able to finish it. Let us salute those men, more 
brave than the heroes of Plutarch, too often ideal- 
ized. These are noble Frenchmen, not selected, 
but assembled there by chance, to manifest spon- 
taneously, all together, and without a useless 
word, the splendid spirit of their native land. 

October 29, 1914. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 205 

The Fikst Balance-Sheet 

One of my friends who is at the front, and whom 
I have reason to consider a very good judge, 
writes me that "in general all goes very well" and 
that he is "more confident than ever." I am too 
happy in receiving the good news from an authori- 
tative person not to share it immediately with my 
readers. 

... On the Yser the enemy seems definitely 
to have abandoned his effort to pass at any price. 
It is an impressive check which closes, with for- 
tune on our side, the murderous encounter which 
is called the battle of Flanders. To prepare Ger- 
man opinion for it, the newspapers of Wilhelm II 
are beginning to make avowals, with infinite pre- 
cautions as to their language. The Frankfort 
Gazette sets an example in terms which are good 
to remember. The former journal of Sonnemann, 
that protestant of 1870 — how the times are 
changed! — declares that it "is not disquieted to 
admit that the French army is not a bad one, that 
the Russians have at their disposal more men 
than the Germans, and that the English have a 
larger fleet than Wilhelm II. ' ' It has taken three 
months of war to inject these facts into the ob- 
stinately closed brains of the Teutonic publicists. 
We must count it a considerable victory to have 
brought them simply to this point. Other discov- 
eries are yet reserved for them. We shall do our 
best to help in their enlightenment. 

The Frankfort Gazette, having already received 
the benefit of certain rays of light, does not hesi- 



206 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

tate to prepare the way for further explanations 
to its readers. It understands quite clearly now 
that one cannot demolish enemy fortresses every 
day amid a tumult of hurrahs. It even admits 
that the Germans, like all the other powers of the 
world, are exposed to losses. So we are already 
very far from the feeling of warlike infallibility 
which was so loudly proclaimed at the beginning 
of hostilities. They have grown more modest at 
Frankfort. The attitude befits the real state of 
things. They will do well to persevere in it. 
Happily there is something that reassures the 
Frankfort Gazette. What will give Germany the 
superiority over her adversaries is "the excellent 
spirit of the people, which exhibits incalculable 
resources of patience and endurance.' ' What is 
this? Patience, endurance! That is what is being 
demanded after three months of war from this 
German people, scientifically regimented, who 
were to seize Paris in two weeks, strike France to 
her knees, turn at a bound to shatter the Eussians, 
while England, bombarded from Zeppelins, over- 
whelmed on the sea, stripped of her colonies, 
should see herself reduced to imploring pity from 
her conquerer. A fine dream of too short dura- 
tion, since after engagements which for us are still 
preliminary, they are beginning to recommend 
patience, endurance — which are virtues of defeat 
— to the invincible conquerors who were to crush 
all before them. 

Must they then recognize that they had madly 
abandoned themselves to hopes too high? They 
were to cross Belgium in a promenade ; they were 
hampered by blood. They were to take Paris by 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 207 

storm ; they had to retreat on arriving there. For 
interminable weeks they have exhausted them- 
selves in renewed offensives, not one of which has 
threatened for a moment to bring the end. Feel- 
ing their way at every point, changing their plan 
from hour to hour, they were now trying to break 
through our lines to regain the road to Paris, now 
announcing the grandiose project of marching on 
Dunkirk and taking Calais, from which they would 
place England, encircled by floating mines, crum- 
bling from the fantastic projectiles of a miracu- 
lous artillery, under the necessity of sending citi- 
zens of Dover to Calais, with ropes around their 
necks, to give revenge to Eustache de Saint-Pierre 
by imploring the favor of surrendering. Alas! 
They crossed the first obstacle, the canal of the 
Yser, only to encumber it with corpses and once 
more to find defeat in the eternal renewal of that 
massed offensive that was to shatter all before it. 
Afterward they attempted, and still attempt, the 
road to Boulogne through La Bassee, and then 
they tried to push through at Soissons on the way 
to Paris. Nothing remains but to begin over again 
in the East, where they have already tried vainly 
to pass. Where is the plan of all this? Where 
is the directing thought, the system of those who 
boasted that they had foreseen everything, pre- 
pared everything, for ends determined by experi- 
ment? 

The roles are reversed when patience and en- 
durance are demanded of the aggressors. Seduced 
to the defensive, they are exhausting themselves 
in counter-offensives no one of which has yet led 
to a result. And as for us, camped for a defensive 



208 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

which has not failed at any point, we shall choose 
the day for the grand offensive for which we have 
prepared in patience and endurance, which are 
the conditions we accepted for it. The Germans 
write every day that we are standing still. "What 
of them? They try to pass and cannot. Is this 
to their advantage ? The military efficiency of our 
troops, and those of our allies as well, keeps in- 
creasing from day to day. Can they say as much, 
when we are finding their units in confusion — 
some of them of inferior quality — and the prison- 
ers that we take dying of hunger? It is our turn 
to get ready for an offensive. We shall not take 
counsel with them on the choice of the moment. 

November 7, 1914. 



The Answer of the French Universities 

The French Universities have had the very good 
idea of responding to the manifesto of the Ger- 
man universities. They have done it in terms of 
a simplicity and sobriety really disconcerting for 
the edifice of lies and artifices so painfully erected 
by the clumsy scholars of militaristic German cul- 
ture. In order more surely to enlighten the minds 
of the men, prejudiced or not, whom they thought 
best to address, our Frenchmen, with great good 
sense, have not judged that disputation was neces- 
sary. No argumentation in the classic sense of 
the word, no trace of dialectic, no debate. The 
facts, quite naked, are such convincing evidence 
that there is no room for discussion. I do not 
think that the French mind has ever more fully 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 209 

clarified in a few lines a set of questions which so 
many confused brains had toiled with so much 
ardor to render obscure. 

It is not enough, truly, to have received the gift 
of a darkened intellect and to stand firm in the 
determination to lie, in order to carry conviction 
to all minds. Even the Germans, perhaps, are be- 
ginning to discover that this may turn out to their 
disadvantage when they find themselves in the 
presence of people who do not allow themselves 
to be imposed on by violent assertions that turn 
pale under the slightest ray of truth. A cousin 
of Ex-President Roosevelt, arriving from New 
York, told me recently that what has done most 
harm to Germany, in the minds of the Americans, 
since the beginning of the war, is the attitude of 
her apologists, who presume that they can force 
acceptance of their views without examination and 
do not admit that their assertions, like all others, 
need to be verified. The American mind, positive 
above all, takes pleasure in the free investigation 
which is the first condition of all knowledge. Noth- 
ing could shock it, therefore, more violently than 
the insolent folly of the representatives of Ger- 
many when they proclaim that there is nothing 
more to say when they have spoken. 

It is not thus that our "intellectuals" of the 
French universities proceed. Not alone do they 
feel that there is something to be said after they 
speak, but they solicit this something from any 
person whatever, claiming for themselves, accord- 
ing to the Socratic method, only the right to open 
the discussion by putting in the simplest possible 
way certain elementary questions. . . . When they 



210 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

ask, for example, "Who willed this war?" and 
later, ' ' Who exerted himself to find means of con- 
ciliation ?" and, "Who, on the other hand, refused 
all those successively proposed by Great Britain, 
Russia, France, and Italy?" we may leave to all 
honest minds — and only such count — the trouble 
of answering. 

When our friends are satisfied to ask, without 
any comment: 

"Who violated the neutrality of Belgium, after 
having guaranteed it? 

"Who declared, in regard to this, that neu- 
trality is but a word, that treaties are scraps of 
paper, and that in time of war one does as one 
canf 

"Who holds as void the international agree- 
ments by which the powers signatory engaged 
themselves not to use, in the conduct of war, any 
kind of force constituting an atrocity or a perfidy, 
and to respect historical monuments, the edifices 
of religion, of science, of art, and of philanthropy, 
except in the case where the enemy, changing the 
nature of them beforehand, should employ them 
for military purposes? 

"Under what conditions was the university of 
Louvain destroyed? 

"Under what conditions was the cathedral of 
Rheims set on fire? 

"Under what conditions were incendiary. bombs 
dropped on Notre-Dame at Paris?" 

We need only let the facts reply to confound irre- 
vocably the pretended "intellectuals" of Germany 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 211 

who invoke, to excuse a crime against sworn faith, 
the hypothetical danger resulting from the fact 
that the adversary might have found himself capa- 
ble of the same outrage. To such allegations, even 
children in school could only shrug their shoulders. 

But the decisive point which the manifesto of 
the French universities throws admirably into re- 
lief is the full agreement claimed by the worthy 
representatives of German thought with the Prus- 
sian militarists, the avowed purpose of whom is 
the brutal domination of the world. Foreign pub- 
licists had endeavored, in the interest of the Ger- 
man scholars themselves, to distinguish their cause 
from that of the brutal military party whose 
chosen mission is to impose its will, by fire and 
sword, on the rest of mankind. The response came 
without delay. Clear and categorical, it is the 
worst condemnation that the men of Kultur could 
pronounce against themselves: "We are shocked 
to note that the enemies of Germany, with Eng- 
land leading, are exerting themselves to create 
dissension, to our disadvantage, between the spirit 
of German science and what they call Prussian 
militarism. The spirit which reigns in the army 
is the same as that which reigns in the German 
people/' 

And here is the reply of the French universi- 
ties: 

< < The French universities continue to think that 
civilization is the work, not of a single people, but 
of all peoples, that the intellectual and moral 
wealth of mankind is created by the variety and 
necessary independence in their principles of all 
nations. 



212 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

"Like the allied armies, they defend, for their 
part, the liberty of the world." 

There is a striking contrast between the two 
ways of thinking and understanding. The one con- 
ceives the life of peoples only in terms of the uni- 
versal subjection of individuality to the unen- 
lightened rigid standard of the German world. 
The other demands for the human mind the right 
to diversity and liberty which has already shown, 
in comparison with the one German achievement, 
results of which all humanity may justly be proud. 

November te } 1914. 

A Comparison 

One of my friends at Geneva has been meeting 
in his city a man from Berlin who was very merry 
at the moment of the fall of Antwerp, but who, 
since the arrest of the German armies on the 
Yser, has had less fire sparkling in his eyes. A 
conversation took place in the course of which my 
friend experienced the surprise of learning that 
Wilhelm II "is at least the equal of Napoleon" — 
whereupon he asked the names of the victories 
of this great warrior, but without succeeding in 
obtaining exact details on that delicate point. The 
great deeds of the Kaiser are evidently less known 
than Austerlitz or Marengo. But if the list is 
somewhat brief for the past, anyone may keep an 
open field for hopes for the future. Surely his 
German friend will not fail to do this, for while 
waiting for success to come, he concluded in these 
words: "We have a hundred army corps intact, 
fully equipped, armed, provided with every neces- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 213 

sity. The French are at the end of their resisting 
power. They can no longer sustain the struggle. 
Our Emperor will finish his work with them." 

It seems to me that we can take this boasting 
as an epitome of the state of mind at Berlin. The 
first thought of the German being to depend less 
on himself than on organization, on executive prep- 
aration that has for its keystone an all-powerful 
imperialism before which it is his pride to be as 
nothing, he lives in the childish faith that such a 
combination of forces is irresistible and that any 
plan to utilize those forces is assured, by a sort of 
cosmic destiny, of final triumph. That there are 
in the world other forces than those of shot and 
shell is something that escapes his comprehension. 
He speaks arrogantly of his "Kultur," as of an 
ornament produced exclusively in Germany, 
which, through the mastery of conquering arms, 
will make a splendid garment for the rest of man- 
kind. The thing which excels all others, which is 
the raison d'etre of the German people, is the 
possession of that highest virtue, a mastery in 
arms which inspires the final verdict of destiny. 
Thus is explained the imperturbable confidence of 
the men who will not see, in the continued check 
of the German arms, anything but a delay in the 
execution of their design. To doubt the triumph 
of the Kaiser would be to blaspheme the "ancient 
German God," the radiant beams of whose glory 
are mingled and confused with those of Germania. 
The sword of Prussia must rule the peoples of the 
earth as the sun orders the progress of the sea- 
sons. 

Therefore when the men of Berlin proclaim that 



214 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Wilhelm II, after deducting all losses, can dis- 
pose of a hundred army corps who are to be 
thrown upon a Europe combating for liberty, in 
order to achieve for humanity a universal peace 
in subjection, they think they are pronouncing 
the final word against which nothing can prevail. 
But here stand the allied peoples whose re- 
sistance, up to this day, has victoriously barred 
the way to the accomplishment of the designs 
of Providence. These fantastic millions of men 
whom the Kaiser pretends to dispose of were all 
in his possession yesterday when the thick masses 
of his best troops came to failure, with enormous 
losses, before the immovable wall of the allied 
soldiers. If he brings them into the line to renew, 
under less favorable conditions, the fruitless ef- 
forts of the weeks just passed, it is because our 
soldiers have cleared the ground of their pre- 
decessors. These new forces whose entry into 
battle is loudly heralded will not be more power- 
ful than those who have fallen in masses under 
our blows. They will have no greater number of 
cannon and shells and incendiary bombs. They 
will shatter no more cathedrals, they will bom- 
bard no more cities or towns, they will shoot no 
more non-combatants, they will saber no more 
women and children, than did their forerunners. 
And even if they did accomplish that miracle, 
whom would it benefit? There would always be 
before them the French and British soldiers, with 
the heroic Belgians, whom they will no more put 
to flight than did their predecessors. We know 
what military supplies have, at certain moments, 
been lacking to us. We know that now we shall 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 215 

lack no stores of equipment or of armament. We 
have patience, we nave courage; and, as for men, 
we do not count the number. 

For reasons that this is not the moment to 
explain, we have never put into the line as many 
troops as our invaders. Our number has been 
sufficient, not to drive them out at one blow, but 
to repulse them magnificently at the Marne and 
on the sea-coast in the north, and to push them 
back foot by foot. It is not man against man 
that we must count when the opposing forces are 
French and German. We have made this evident. 
Thus we have been able to overcome certain 
temporary disadvantages ; thus we have found the 
way to hold out. As for the superiority of num- 
bers, it appears formidable on the side of the 
Russians, whose millions of soldiers exist in 
reality and not in boasting, and who, if they are 
slower to get into the battle than the Germans, 
will be but the more irresistible when the moment 
comes. Superiority of numbers will also be ours 
even on the western battle-front, since our losses 
are not comparable to those of Germany, who has 
seen her best soldiers succumb; since we are still 
far from utilizing all the reserves that are fully 
ready; since our concentration camps can put at 
the disposition of General Joffre, when necessary, 
the number of combatants that he may ask for; 
and last of all, since Great Britain is raising and 
equipping armies and has already announced that 
her first million men will be followed by a second 
million. 

If, then, we were reduced to weigh in the same 
scales the fighting prowess of the adversaries f ac- 



216 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

ing each other, we could still shrug our shoulders 
at German rhodomontade. But the Germans have 
only too many reasons to know that they cannot 
be measured individually against us. Their 
method is that of masses. Just as they attack 
our lines in close formation only to be slaughtered 
in droves by our artillery, so what they have of 
moral force, instead of springing from depth of 
conviction, is dictated first of all by those in com- 
mand who hold them massed in herds for attack 
and for defense. 

With us, on the contrary, the power of the mass 
is only the sum of individual wills freely exerted. 
They have machines for war; we have soldiers. 
Search among our men for a wretch degraded 
enough to say, as did one of theirs the other day, 
"I'd as lief be German, Eussian, English or 
French." Our men are very sure in their con- 
sciences as to what binds them to their native, 
land. This mother France, to whom they offer 
their complete sacrifice — they feel her, they live 
her, she speaks through their actions and their 
words of joyous valor at every moment of the 
combat and in every hour of toil. They are 
France, in reality, for they are creating her hour 
by hour. It is on them that all eyes are fixed, it 
is toward them that all our hearts are turned. 
In them is our hope, our power, of salvation. 
They are our immovable rock against which all 
the forces of the German cohorts may dash them- 
selves to their destruction. In the past our 
leaders, civil and military, have not been without 
their failings. But the people has always been 
able, in some manner, to make amends. 



FRANCE PACING GERMANY 21? 

To-day, in the mud and water of the trenches, 
every Frenchman is giving himself wholly, in 
spontaneous exaltation, to any act of heroism, nor 
can he discover anything in his own bravery be- 
yond the natural fulfilment of the simplest duty. 
From the battle of the Marne, which was his real 
entrance into the line, he has made the enemy 
feel his presence, and since that day there has 
been no massed attack, succeeding artillery fire 
however violent, that has been able to shake him. 
Everywhere he has stood fast. At every point 
where chance has given him the opportunity he 
has forced the enemy back. What are the German 
strategists to do on the two fronts in Poland and 
France, where for weeks past they have been able 
to gain nothing 1 The answer is simple. They 
are going to begin over again. Already formid- 
able attacks are announced to us, as if we did not 
know the full strength of German aggression 
from having repulsed it. We hear of heavy artil- 
lery that is being painfully brought up to the 
Yser for the purpose of renewing the enterprise 
of the famous drive which was to take the Kaiser 
to Calais, but which left him dangerously em- 
barrassed at Nieuport. Arras, Soissons, Roye, 
Vailly, we are told, are again to witness furious 
offensives such as we were able to arrest defi- 
nitively. So be it. 

On both these sectors, and on others also, if 
necessary, the onrush will be met as has been the 
case before, and the French lines, far from break- 
ing, will continue, slowly perhaps, but irresistibly, 
to advance. Despatches from Belgium announce, 
moreover, that great movements of troops are 



218 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

taking place toward Eastern Prussia, where Kus- 
sia is energetically pressing upon the enemy. 
The military forces with which Wilhelm II is 
trying to dazzle us will have abundant work. 

November 27, 1914. 

The Opinion of the Trenches 

The Germans do not know us. If they have 
proposals of peace to make, why have they not 
sought to know, first of all, whom to address? I 
have informed them very frequently in my 
articles, when I have written that the French 
people have taken their own affairs in hand and 
are on their way to save themselves without 
troubling themselves overmuch as to the measure 
in which they will be aided in the work. As 
Professor Ostwald repeats, the people of Wilhelm 
II are an "organized" people, in the sense that 
they are distributed, regimented, ticketed, in 
categories of subordination in which is mani- 
fested a series of mechanical motions which they 
call their life, and beyond which they understand 
nothing. 

What they call their "Kultur" being nothing 
but mechanical method automatically functioning 
through the parts of a hierarchic whole, these 
men, or mannikins, cannot conceive a higher 
ideal for the human species than to make itself, 
in turn, into a Teutonic machine. It is this that 
possibly explains the ingenuousness of their 
scientists, who, considering men as the inert sub- 
stances of their dreams, declare that their com- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 219 

patriots liave reached a high stage of chemical 
combination in which it seems good to crystallize 
them. And since they are crystallizing them- 
selves according to plans predetermined, the good 
order of the universe requires that all mankind 
do likewise. From minds so profound this idea 
may seem to be of a simplicity rather discon- 
certing, but we must understand our enemy if 
we would conquer him completely. 

Whatever in our eyes constitutes the worth of 
human nature, — the independence of conscience, 
the freedom of the ego, the liberty of personality 
under the sanction of a corresponding responsi- 
bility, — -all this is, in their eyes, only " individual- 
ism," that is to say, an evidence of social weak- 
ness. What is beautiful to them, what is grand 
and noblest, is for the individual to efface himself 
in order to glorify himself by falling to the rank 
of an insensible particle in a whole that is " colos- 
sal,' ' pompously so called. Thus the servant is 
seen swelling with pride at the grandeur of the 
master who holds him under the law. 

The phenomenon is as old as the world. When 
M. Lintilhac, in the tribune of the Senate, tried 
to convert me to the suppression of the right to 
teach by citing Aristotle's doctrine that every 
citizen is the property of the state, he was carry- 
ing back considerably the origins of the great 
discovery that the Germans have made in the 
last fifty years (that is to say, since Sedan), 
according to Professor Ostwald, to whom the 
child's toy of a Nobel prize seems the supreme 
achievement of mankind. And as I am fairly 
sure that Aristotle did nothing but reproduce, in 



220 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the opinion mentioned, the fundamental idea of 
the aged Asiatic despotisms in which his mad 
Macedonian pupil had gone to seek intoxication 
as far as the hanks of the Indus, this miracle of 
intellect, in which German "Kultur" is epito- 
mized, might easily bring us nothing but a return 
to the primitive brutality which could see in man 
only a passive instrument of higher wills whose 
sole title to rule is in the sword which rules over 
an organized militarism. 

When, by virtue solely of the fact that they 
had annihilated the army of Napoleon III at 
Sedan, the peoples of Germania had once accom- 
plished this incredible marvel of spontaneously 
returning to the ideas of barbarous autocracy 
which stunned and paralyzed and condemned to 
lasting weakness the admirable intellectual im- 
pulse of the ancient civilizations of Asia, it was 
but a little thing, surely, that, so proud of the 
triumphant reaction which led them back several 
thousands of years behind the European idea of 
social progress as coming from the ennoblement 
of each individual, our pan-Germans should judge 
that their mission here below was the pan-Ger- 
manizing of humanity. 

The difficulty is that the Greco-Eoman civiliza- 
tion, from which we issued, has turned us 
unwaveringly, after dramatic vacillations, to- 
ward the endowment of that personality which 
Professor Ostwald scornfully denominates the 
"individual," and which we respectfully call 
"man," with an enlarging number of rights, 
through which, ceasing to be the property of one 
or more masters (or even of the state), men form 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 221 

and establish a unity in independence of a higher 
worth than all the combinations of brute will 
which have aspired to place them under subjec- 
tion. 

I am setting theory against theory, and with- 
out forgetting — for history reminds us but too 
cruelly — that the distance is often very great be- 
tween the noblest aspirations and the pitiful ac- 
complishments which incapable human nature 
permits us to realize. There was no more justice 
in the French Eevolution than in any battle. But 
in the gigantic upheaval there appeared the 
formidable force of a popular explosion which, in 
the total overthrow of Europe, succeeded in build- 
ing the first foundations of a new order. And 
this is something that the peoples of the world, 
except, we must believe, the Germans, have not 
yet forgotten. 

It is the peculiar mark of our nation that the 
ruling classes, at all times, have failed them. Our 
warlike nobility failed in their historical duties 
in many a battle. Louis XIV ruined and enslaved 
them. Louis XV sank a marvelous movement of 
thought into the quicksands of demoralization 
which on the morrow were to throw up before 
the army of Coblentz the debris of a vanished 
grandeur. There remained, and remain still, the 
soldiers of the year II, who, aroused in mass by 
the devastating tempest, were inspired to gain, 
and in the universal battle did gain, a victory 
for freedom. Their bourgeoisie failed them, as 
the nobles had failed their fathers; to understand 
the failure, only compare this story with that of 
the English governing classes. But they fought 



222 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

battles which are decisive dates in the history 
of man. If a conqueror, haunted by the history 
of Borne, did try to rebuild, with these same men, 
and with forms bearing new names, the edifice 
of the past, this enterprise, which no genius could 
have saved from failure, has only the importance 
of a magnificent episode. The French armies, as 
all the world has said, were the direct expression 
of the French people. The unchangeable hero 
of the Revolution was that peasant in wooden 
shoes who rushed to the frontiers to cry to 
Brunswick, while gnawing at his cartridge, * ' You 
shall not pass!" He simply stood and died, but 
they did not pass. And because he was dead, 
we thought he could not reappear. Unpardon- 
able misunderstanding of our race! The soldier 
of the year II had left children. 

Legitimate children, the true heirs of his in- 
stincts, of his mind, of his great heart, who can- 
not bargain about any sacrifice for their country! 
In the Vendee the whites used to insult the blues 
with the epithet of patriot; it is our title of 
honor. In this glorious hour they are all there, 
whites and blues, mingling in the trenches. The 
new soldier of the year II finds himself supported 
by those of his brothers whom an unhappy destiny 
had made his enemies. There is but one people 
now, one life in action, one force of feeling and 
of will, against which all the assaults of the 
German masses, made into a military machine, 
must shatter themselves. 

There is great advantage, yes, in methodical 
science, in incessant foresight, in meticulous 
preparation of everything for the achievement of 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 223 

a single plan, in omitting nothing in calculations 
. . . except the force of the incalculable. And 
it is exactly the incalculable that springs to view 
on the Gallic soil, in the form of the bantering 
little soldier who, in the mud of the trenches, 
sometimes envies his ancestor those wooden shoes, 
but would refuse to admit that he cannot do 
even greater deeds than his ancestor. Toward 
him also, as toward his brothers of former days, 
the rulers have been at fault. He feels it, he 
sees it more or less clearly, but he does not pause 
for such unworthy thoughts. He has seen his 
duty so clearly that all the rest of the picture 
has vanished. That implacable duty requires, 
from moment to moment, the sacrifice of All. 
And putting aside, with many precious realities, 
illusions without number, hopes without end, 
affections unweakened, everything which en- 
lightens and warms and inflames his life, he 
proudly asks himself if this will be enough. For 
he needs still more to satisfy his superhuman 
ardor, and from his way of speaking and acting 
you may be sure that he will find something to 
express the inexpressible with which his heart 
is fired. Let us take pity on the man who burns 
the midnight oil to find phrases for such heroic 
simplicity, and restrain ourselves in wonder at 
the sublime deed from which men will reap their 
profit to-morrow. 

Yesterday, in the saddest hospital of Bordeaux, 
a Eed Cross nurse was entertaining the soldiers 
with a phonograph. The Marseillaise, the Chant 
du Depart, and the Marche de Sambre-et-Meuse 



224 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

aroused the enthusiasm of all, and one of them 
suddenly cried out: 

"Ah! Thank you, madame; that makes a man 
understand why he is here!" 

Tell me, phrase-making lovers of tradition, 
whether this fellow has not found the path his 
fathers trod. He felt, he understood, he spoke: 
and all these noble cripples, waving stiff arms 
under formless bandages, cried out: 

"That's it — that's it! That makes a man un- 
derstand!" 

Out under the shells they had made it clear 
enough that they understood. But in the tortur- 
ing monotony of the hospitals, far from the field 
of sacrifice that they long for with all their 
hearts, they burn with the enthusiasm of those 
ancestors who had shown them the way! 

Such are our Frenchmen, professionals in 
German butchery! They know how to kill, in 
their own way, and to die, since you require it of 
them, but in contrast with your master, and with 
you yourselves, unfortunately, they fight to let 
live, to set free, to bring to men more liberty. 
When you want peace it is to them that your 
Excellencies must speak. On peace and on war 
they will have conquered the right to speak, for 
they are France militant. They have not exerted 
more than human virtues in order to serve as a 
theme for popular speech-making. They have de- 
termined to do something that counts. They are 
inspired by the idea that aroused their ancestors 
■ — the creation of a new Europe for the better uses 
of humanity, and a higher life. They will accept 
no German peace and leave behind them condi- 



FRANCE FACING GEEMANY 225 

tions pregnant with disaster. A French peace, 
a peace that will establish a lasting destiny for 
Europe by reducing to impotence the leaders of 
savagery, that is the peace desired by our soldiers. 
That is the opinion of the trenches. 

December 2, 1914. 

The Yellow Book 

. . . Already the treatment of the events 
which led to the declaration of war has become a 
task for history. We were too familiar with them 
to need to revive them. The Yellow Booh may 
confirm the French in what they know already, 
whether from the Blue Booh or from the daily 
reading of the papers. It is for foreigners to 
search here for authoritative documents on which 
they may be able to found a definitive opinion. 

... Of the military preparations of the 
Kaiser, in which he had obtained the complicity 
even of the socialists, pretended friends of peace, 
we have nothing to say. The story of them has 
been told us many times. In exciting at every 
opportunity the extravagant Chauvinism which 
takes the place of public opinion in Germany, in 
invoking the memory of 1813 and 1814, it was easy 
to influence men to let themselves be drawn into 
the adventure of war which was to place all the 
peoples under the rule of the Kaiser. In this, 
Wilhelm II was assured of a too facile success. 
An official and secret report of which we had a 
communication in March, 1913, insisted on the ne- 



226 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

cessity of preparing for the war, without awaken- 
ing distrust, in such a way that "A declaration 
of it would seem like a deliverance. . . . We must 
imbue the people with the idea that our armaments 
are an answer to the armaments and the policy 
of the French. We must accustom them to think 
that an offensive war on our side is necessary to 
withstand the threats of the adversary." From 
that date, therefore, the rulers of France had their 
warning. In that document there was a study of 
ways and means to excite uprisings in Egypt, at 
Tunis, at Algiers, in Morocco, and the principle 
was formulated that small states must be forced 
to follow Germany or be subjected. To begin, 
an ultimatum with a short time-limit must be fol- 
lowed immediately by invasion. They could not 
hesitate, because, "The provinces of the ancient 
German Empire, Burgundy, and a good part of 
Lorraine, are still in the hands of the Franks, and 
thousands of our German brothers in the Baltic 
provinces are groaning under the Slavic yoke." 

In the month of May, 1913, M. Jules Cambon, 
renewing the former warning, notified us that 
General von Moltke, chief of the German general 
staff, had, in a gathering of Germans, uttered the 
following words: "We must ignore the common- 
places about the responsibility of the aggressor. 
. . . We must get ahead of our principal adver- 
sary, and as soon as there are nine chances in ten 
of having war we must begin it, without more 
delay, in order to beat down all resistance by brute 
force." 

Six months later, on November 22, 1913, our 
ambassador at Berlin addressed to his minister a 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 227 

critical letter, the importance of which is so great 
that I think it should be given here in its entirety. 

M. Jules Cambon, Ambassador of the French 
Republic at Berlin, to M. Stephen Pichon, 
Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Berlin, November 22, 1913. 

I have obtained, from an absolutely trustworthy 
source, the account of a conversation which the 
German Emperor is said to have had with the 
King of the Belgians in the presence of General 
von Moltke, Chief of Staff, a fortnight ago, a con- 
versation which, it appears, strongly impressed 
King Albert. I am by no means surprised at his 
impression, for it corresponds to what I have 
myself felt for some time : the hostility against us 
is increasing, and the Emperor has ceased to be 
an advocate of peace. 

The interlocutor of the German Emperor had 
thought until now, as did everyone, that Wilhelm 
II, whose personal influence has been often ex- 
erted, in critical circumstances, for the mainte- 
nance of the peace, was still in the same frame of 
mind. This time he seems to have found him 
completely changed. The German Emperor is no 
longer, to his mind, the champion of peace against 
the bellicose tendencies of certain parties in Ger- 
many. Wilhelm II has come to think that war 
with France is inevitable and that he must come 
to it sooner or later. Naturally he believes in the 
overwhelming superiority of the German army 
and in its certain success. 

General von Moltke spoke exactly like his sover- 



228 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

eign. He also declared that the war was neces- 
sary and inevitable, but lie displayed even more 
certainty of success, for, he said to the King, 
' ' This time we must make an end of it, and your 
Majesty cannot doubt the irresistible enthusiasm 
which, when the day comes, will inspire the whole 
German people." 

The King of the Belgians protested that it was 
a travesty of the intentions of the French govern- 
ment to interpret them as the Germans did, and 
to be misled concerning the sentiments of the 
French nation by the manifestations of certain 
excited minds or of unscrupulous intriguers. 

The Emperor and his Chief of Staff persisted 
none the less in their opinion. 

In the course of their conversation the Emperor 
had appeared, moreover, tired and irritable. In 
proportion as the years weigh upon Wilhelm II, 
the family traditions, the reactionary sentiments 
of the court, and above all, the impatience of the 
military party, gain greater empire over his mind. 
Perhaps he feels some jealousy of the popularity 
that has been acquired by his son, who flatters the 
passions of the pan-Germans and thinks that the 
situation of the Empire in the world is not equal 
to its power. Perhaps, also, the reply of France 
to the last increase in the German army, the object 
of which was to establish an incontestable German 
superiority, has something to do with his bitter- 
ness, for, whatever may be said, it is felt that 
things cannot go on as they are much longer. 

One naturally wonders what was the object of 
this conversation. The Emperor and his Chief of 
Staff may have had the intention of impressing 



FEANCB FACING GERMANY 229 

the King of the Belgians and of influencing him 
against opposing his resistance in case a conflict 
with us should come about. Perhaps, also, it is 
desired that Belgium should be less hostile to cer- 
tain ambitions which are manifested here in 
regard to the Belgian Congo, but this last hypoth- 
esis does not seem to me to explain the presence 
of General von Moltke. 

It should be added that Emperor Wilhelm is less 
fully master of his fits of impatience than is com- 
monly believed. More than once I have seen him 
allow his secret thought to escape him. Whatever 
may have been the object of the conversation 
which has been reported to me, the confidence is 
none the less of the most serious nature. It cor- 
responds to the precariousness of the general sit- 
uation and to the condition of a certain section of 
opinion in France and in Germany. 

If I were allowed to draw conclusions, I should 
say that it is well to keep in mind the new fact 
that the Emperor is growing favorable to certain 
ideas which were formerly repugnant to him, and 
that, to borroiv from him an expression which he 
is fond of using, we should keep our powder dry. 

Jules Gambol. 

... There was no need of these irrefutable 
documents to establish the premeditation that is 
demonstrated by forty years of methodical prep- 
aration. None the less, the documents prophesied, 
a short time ahead, the fatal culmination of a long 
series of incessant efforts carried on with remark- 
able perseverance toward the single end of a Euro- 
pean conquest which should open for Germany; 



230 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the gate to universal domination. AH the rest is 
but a logical development of an enterprise as to 
which one hardly knows whether to wonder most 
at the folly of its conception or at the coolness 
of its execution. 

If we had leisure to consider these things from 
the purely objective point of view, we could give 
ourselves up to an interesting study of a phenome- 
non of national psychology for which I can find 
no precedent. But since we are the first victims 
of it, we are under the necessity of looking at the 
problem from quite another angle. The power of 
will that was capable of assembling, organizing, 
and developing the greatest stores of instruments 
of war that history mentions, needed, in order to 
bring on the present catastrophe, the concurrence 
of a no less stupefying series of faults and errors 
among those who have been able to live for half a 
century under the menace -of a crushing blow 
without rising to the resolution to improve all 
chances for success upon their side. 

Let me be permitted to say that this phenome- 
non is not less disconcerting than the other. Pos- 
sibly it is more so, for if it is the nature of man 
to attempt incessantly to master others, a natural 
law also opposes to this irrepressible fatality a 
response in concerted defense. The miracle is 
that so much premeditation on one side could be 
answered by so much systematic unpreparedness 
on the side of three great peoples whose annals 
are in no wise inferior to those of Germany. This 
will be the marvel that will arrest the attention 
of the historians. 

To consider only our own case, our soldiers are 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 231 

on the way to redeem so marvelously the faults 
which are not theirs, that the flame of French 
ardor will but appear perhaps the purer and more 
beautiful for it. At the price of how much blood ! 
At the price of what ruin, and suffering, and de- 
spair ! How could we forget it, when ten Depart- 
ments of France are still under the German heel? 
If it seems good to me to recall these things, it is 
because I wish everyone to understand that the 
salvation of France will come by abandoning our 
old ways of carelessness, which have brought us 
so much suffering, and by bringing our governors 
to such noble deeds of bravery and in devotion as 
those of which the humble children of the people, 
whom history will not know, are giving the world 
a miraculous exhibition to the glory of the French 
blood. 

December 4, 1914. 

Those at the Fkont 

. . . The man who is under fire lives a multi- 
plied life, necessitated as much by the imminence 
of danger as by the necessity of exacting hourly 
from his physical and moral resources a maximum 
of result. Civilized life prepares us in an imper- 
fect way for the sudden exertions of supreme 
energy. Our private crises are those of personal 
feeling far more often than of external violence, 
and in the lands of "individualism," as the Ger- 
mans say — that is, in the lands where man is con- 
sidered the social reality, not a metaphysical en- 
tity in the imperialized state — the effective prepa- 
ration for war is lightened of its cares because one 



232 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

counts too freely on the resources of personal 
force which will spring up in the individual who 
has grown strong from a superior gymnastics of 
liberty and free will. 

The idea of the great sacrifice remains dim to 
us. The frenzy of living does not permit us to 
pause over it. And then, all of a sudden, because 
Austria and Serbia have said certain things, in- 
stead of certain others, the country, endangered, 
calls its children to the guns, and there comes the 
spectacle of men eager to offer their lives for a 
cause higher than that to which, until this mo- 
ment, they held themselves attached. 

From day to day the springs of our emotions 
and our actions are changing. Things and beings 
that once filled our hearts, that still hold them by 
so many strong ties, are becoming dimmer to us. 
Nothing of the past is abolished. But the im- 
portance of the hour has become so great that its 
shadow is on everything, obscuring, without pos- 
sible remedy, what is not of the present. Out of 
the man has sprung the soldier, purified in soul, 
firm, in whom is summarily filtered all the flood of 
former sentimentalities, leaving only an un- 
changeable residue of will resolved on action in 
which shall be summed up all the inspiration of a 
life. 

For rushing into the shellfire, for entire f orget- 
fulness of self, and, alas! of those to whom one 
has given the best of his being (and who thus are 
in their own right a part of the total sacrifice), 
because it is imperative before all else to sweep 
the earth clear of the barbarians whose violence 
is turned against the right to one's home, to his 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 233 

free speech, to the august history of his ancestors, 
turned against the right of a noble race to its tra- 
ditions, its thought, its age-long hopes, against its 
right to its native land, to put all in one word — 
for this, it had seemed, the ease and soft solici- 
tudes of modern society had insufficiently pre- 
pared the men of to-day. Undoubtedly they knew 
that there was something above the common com- 
forts of a civilization more or less refined. They 
had been told so from infancy, they had repeated 
it on every occasion, but what a difference when 
voices from within and from without brusquely 
arrested them in the monotony of every day to 
proclaim to them that the moment had come to 
follow the examples of the great! The examples 
of the great, what was more beautiful in the books ! 
It is a long way from books to action, the call 
to which resounds everywhere in thrilling words : 
it is to-day! 

To-day ! France cries out her need for her chil- 
dren to give their lives that she may live. It is 
the great cry that descends from the hills and re- 
sounds through the valleys and fills the plain over 
beyond the horizon. And the young men rush to 
answer, proud to think they are going to make 
history, are going to condense in a moment of 
time sensations higher and nobler than centuries 
of numberless commonplace lives could give them ; 
proud in their youth with the secret thought that 
they will do better than their ancestors. 

They did not say it. They have done it. A noble 
answer to those who had been able to doubt them. 
Possessed with their duty, they had even shown 
themselves capable of silence. And some persons 



234 FKANCE FACING GERMANY 

wretchedly misunderstood them. Look at them 
now. No common fellows fixing their eyes on the 
ground — it is with heads high that they face you. 
Never a complaint from them — nothing but mes- 
sages of hope and gaiety. From the pedestal of 
Rude bursts forth the miracle of Galatea. The 
stone has taken life for the achievement of mar- 
vels that our sorry skepticism never expected to 
see again. The heroes of older times have sprung 
forth from the conquering arch to show the path 
to the heroes of to-day. They have found each 
other, they have joined arms and weapons, wills 
and hearts. In the night, in the trenches, they 
hold silent communion with the motherland. In 
the day their confident daring renders her splen- 
did. Enraptured with great deeds, certain that 
they will expend the utmost of their forces, and 
happy to feel that one must do more than kill 
them in order to conquer them, they rush into the 
field of battle forcing a frightened Fortune to fol- 
low in their steps. 

Through the endless centuries of history there 
have been others who have known how to give 
up their lives nobly — lives that were rich in 
hopes, though but too poor in realization. To 
the generations of the present has been be- 
queathed the magnificent heritage of all the 
treasures of the past; and if the first human 
hordes, in dying, lost nothing but their life of 
savagery, the man who inherits all the labor of 
the centuries has seen growing, along with the 
value of his own life, the grandeur of the causes 
which, to ennoble generations still to come, exact 
of him a larger sacrifice. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 235 

What a sorry lot was that of the Philip of 
Macedon whom Demosthenes shows us, with an 
eye gone, a shoulder broken, and a thigh slashed, 
throwing his members to Fortune in order that 
with what remained he might live gloriously! 
The glory of the conqueror is not glorious enough 
for the humblest of our French soldiers, who 
leave to lesser breeds the atavistic hunger for 
the lands of other men. For their honor, for the 
glory of their work, they would make of the 
country that they have saved and liberated, the 
most noble force for conquests of benevolence and 
culture, and I am none too certain that if the 
task is rendered harder by the indolence of in- 
capable administrators, they do not experience 
a prouder satisfaction in feeling that there was 
need of them to be all-sufficient. 

Such a superhuman sentiment, though it is 
judged by them, in their simplicity, to be quite 
natural, is what transports them beyond the com- 
mon nature of man and causes them, at the very 
moment when many of them, perhaps, are yet 
ignorant of their glory, to appear to us so mag- 
nificent; just as if the long silhouette that 
stretches across the field at sunset had suddenly 
stood up alive while the real object, shrinking, 
had taken its place in the dust. Such I see them. 
Such they are. They are saving France, saving 
her with their blood, consecrated by a force 
within them that makes them capable of every 
transport. One and all, fraternally devoted to 
the leader as to the humblest of their comrades, 
laughing at the cold of the trenches or cutting 
their path at the point of the bayonet, through 



236 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the strongest masses of the human avalanche be- 
fore them, they reveal to us the fact that the 
most miraculous legends of the great combats of 
our race were no more than simple truths. 

December 15, 1914. 

Thoughts on the War 

... I have said it very often. We also, we of 
the rear, have our part in this enormous adven- 
ture. It is to suffice in everything. It is to rise 
above all considerations of party, without allow- 
ing the partizans of an older school, under the 
favor of our disinterestedness, to seek to profit 
by the opportunity to lead us back into reaction- 
ary ways. It is to discipline ourselves strictly, 
that we may do nothing to diminish in the 
slightest degree the full force of our military 
effort. It is to allow nothing to be injured in 
our republican institutions, for which so much 
excellent blood has been sacrificed, to see that 
nothing of our liberty is proscribed or of our 
right to full parliamentary control; and these 
we must hold fast only that our soldiers may 
fully profit by them. If, in a word, the magnitude 
of this tragedy is beyond the powers of the minds 
in our government, we must hold fast always for 
the law and the right in the aim of materially 
and morally strengthening our military forces — 
by saving precious lives threatened by our in- 
capability; by keeping high the morale of men 
who will go to the sacrifice with good will only 
if they feel that the equality of all in the face 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 237 

of danger has ceased to be betrayed by the 
caprices of special favor; and by seeking to make 
certain the unity of all Frenchmen, not in bursts 
of rhetoric, but in the confidence, necessary to 
every man who would do his duty, that his neigh- 
bor, whether great or small, whether cabinet 
minister or private in the ranks, cannot shirk his 
own. 

January 17, 1915. 

The Supeeme Eesistance 

. . . The supreme importance of this terrible 
war — the most overwhelming barbarity that the 
world has ever seen — lies in the certainty, al- 
ready established, that no continent will ever have 
to submit, after our victory, to the domination 
of a conqueror, of a master-people, peace with 
whom would entail a series of new dangers for 
a future more or less near at hand. No tri- 
umphant victor imposing his will even on his 
auxiliaries, whose mistrust might already have 
been aroused! Only the victory of the higher 
principles of civilization! Whoever wishes to 
share the struggle may do so. We call all the 
peoples to a glorious cause— the greatest with 
which history has yet tempted them. Let him 
who wishes to be great rise. The more they are, 
the greater will be the chances, from this day, for 
a higher society of mankind. Italians, Greeks, 
Eoumanians, let them come, if they have the 
proud feeling that the high aspiration of their 
race destines them for a place in the terrible and 
supreme conflict; and so all neutral peoples, who 



238 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

must be weary of standing with folded arms 
while, in the greatest of terrestrial struggles, 
their dearest interests — it is not possible for them 
to be ignorant of it — are manifestly at stake. 
All! A common front against the devastating 
monster who sees nothing in man except an auto- 
matic machine for the crushing of his fellow- 
man! 

January 30, 1915. 



The Two Sides of the Shield 

The vista of history is extensive enough to 
show that the evolution of peoples toward a 
liberation from their ancestral chains is incon- 
testable. With all her scientists regimented, 
with all the forces of an admirable economic de- 
velopment, with the sovereign efficiency of an 
absolute government bent on setting all those 
forces at work, Germany has made one mistake, — 
one only, but one that is irreparable, — that of 
proclaiming herself enemy to the irresistible 
movement of men toward a greater freedom and, 
with it, a higher dignity. She is great, she is 
strong; against the union of modern nations she 
is but feeble. Sadowa and Sedan were fortunate 
strokes of victory. It is another thing to stand 
as an obstacle, in the path of their historical de- 
velopment, against all men and all assembled 
peoples. Where Napoleon himself came to ruin, 
neither von Kluck nor von Hindenburg, with 
their Kaiser and their Crown Prince, is great 
enough to succeed. Against a law of nature the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 239 

greatest of human forces can but dash itself to 
pieces. 

As for us, with our territory invaded, we have, 
besides a far superior moral force, certain mili- 
tary advantages which have demonstrated them- 
selves rather remarkably — soldiers whom nothing 
can beat down, and generals who have not yet 
shown their full powers, although some of them 
have already done remarkable things. We have 
confidence in them, leaders and men. We have 
forgotten whatever may have divided us. We 
shall continue to uphold all of them, in the dark- 
est days of their trial, strong in the great his- 
torical lessons of the traditions of the year II. 
On all the fronts at once we are seeing the soldiers 
of the Kaiser straining in an unprecedented effort 
to submerge us. To the might of their attempts 
we oppose an unconquerable resistance. Like the 
symbolic Blucher, which, ripped open by the 
British cannon, ordered her last batteries to thun- 
der, while her last men clamored, until the moment 
of foundering. Germany is firing from every port- 
hole, but a relentless fate is already raising the 
great waves that will engulf her. 

January 31, 1915. 

Gaeibaldi ! 

After many years I once more saw, yesterday, 
my noble friend General Bicciotti Garibaldi, 
whose name alone calls up so many memories of 
glory, dear to France and Italy alike. For 
modern Europe, the life of his great ancestor 



240 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

will remain a landmark in history. Should we be 
surprised if, in the terrible days when the Latin 
idea and the civilization of the world which is- 
sued from it are menaced anew by the Teuton 
hordes, ail those among us who remain faithful 
to the ancestral tradition of high Roman virtue 
turn spontaneously towards the simple and gen- 
erous hero whose valor and grandeur encourage 
us to all the sacrifices which the honored race of 
our ancestors demands of us? 

Giuseppe Garibaldi was one of those magicians 
who give the word of command to peoples, as 
to their pretended sovereigns. Such men are the 
real workers of miracles, for they do not reckon 
upon human powers when a superhuman force 
urges them to deeds of mad audacity which come 
to be, through them, those of perfect reason. 

It is insensate of anyone to speak ill of the 
laborious creators of ideal doctrines which are 
the very foundations of our civilization. Re- 
ligion, science, philosophy are among the in- 
credible marvels of constructive thought. Only, 
no amount of labor will give life to them without 
an enthusiasm of the heart, informing the in- 
tellect, and a resolution of the will, animating all 
our machinery of thought. 

Those who know, or think they know, will 
speak. But words are not life. It is human 
nature to follow, by instinct, the men who rise, 
in the junctures of history for which we know 
no rule, to accomplish in heroic simplicity just 
those things that "reason" had not foreseen. 
Prophets, leaders of men lifted above the crowd 
by an irresistible force which makes them seem 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 241 

like creatures of a higher sphere, such men leave 
behind them, as it were, a great trail of light 
through the chaotic ruins of the past. And all 
those who trembled with fear or joy at the wind 
of the meteor that nothing stops find that they 
have lived a life more strenuous, in a moment 
of time, than the many other lives whose forces 
are wasted away in carelessly following the cur- 
rents of the day. 

To achieve this marvel, the man is necessary. 
Change the places in the centuries of Christ and 
Mohamet, and there is another page of history to 
turn. Garibaldi appeared at his moment, but of 
that moment he was, in the highest degree, the 
lofty expression. Ingenuously tormented by an 
idea, he was never willing to see an obstacle or 
to recognize an impossibility. He merely said 
to himself, "I shall succeed," and he did suc- 
ceed. It seems simple enough to us to-day. Why 
had not others come to do it before him? He 
passed, giving the crown to those who begged 
for royalty, and went away to hide himself in his 
island, fleeing the importunity of glory in the 
charm of the azured vault of his rapturous Medi- 
terranean. 

He had set free; it was for freedom to do her 
work. It did not please him to have another 
reason for existence. And yet, if a cloud on the 
horizon announced to him some tempest at large, 
if a great cry came through the air to him, if 
the waves brought to him the plaints of a tor- 
tured people, his clear and tender eye suddenly 
showed fire again. 

"Let us go," said his calm voice. And the 



242 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

bark, of its own will, carried him off, confident, 
to the unknown. 

It was thus that we saw him appear in our 
France on the battlefield of Dijon, gathering from 
the ancient soil new laurels of victory when 
feeble hearts had thought the garland was ex- 
hausted. You were there, my good Eicciotti, 
worthy son of a hero, with the noble phalanx 
which lavished its generous blood to make a mock 
of destiny. The decision, alas, could not be re- 
versed. . . . 

Proudly persevering in his smiling pursuit of 
oblivion, the man who would not accept defeat 
entered gaily into history, like the divine figure 
of the Parthenon whose glorious chariot sinks 
with its dazzling equipage into the waves of 
ocean, but only to prepare for the renewal of the 
next dawning. 

And fifty years have not yet passed before 
there comes about, again upon our soil, on the 
same pediment, that renewal of which the vision 
gave us the image. Again the same enemy — still 
the same combat ! If we look at it closely, perhaps 
it is but a continuation of the last. On our dev- 
astated plains the star whose coursers rise from 
the eternal gulf finds again these same French- 
men, sons of Athens and Eome, and these same 
Germans in their dark barbarism, who were not 
capable of conquering Athens and Kome without 
falling fatally under the invincible law of the 
Greco-Roman genius. 

France and Germany face each other once more 
on the tired soil of the Gauls. Every man is at 
his post. Garibaldi is there also. Six young 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 243 

soldiers from Italy and France together answer 
the call of the great name, and the heroic ardor 
in their blood sends them into the thickest of the 
battle. Two have fallen on the field of honor, and 
Ricciotti, who is going to receive them in his 
sacred Rome, for a triumphant funeral, says to 
them : ' ' It is well ; I am pleased with yon. ' ' And 
the four survivors look on them with an eye of 
envy. 

. . . Garibaldi gave all he possessed without 
ever thinking of a recompense. He who gave so 
much was not capable of seeking an equivalent 
return. His highest joy came from receiving 
nothing and lavishing his all. Make them un- 
derstand that, if you can, those stunted little 
creatures who are ambitious solely to shine by 
the foolishness of others. 

. . . But if Garibaldi could have survived, the 
finest of rewards would have been reserved to 
him in the ineffable joy of seeing his blood con- 
tinue to flow in a heroic race whose monuments 
we shall add, some day, to his statue in Nice. 
We may marvel at the power of an ideal force 
which the great acts of such a life were not suffi- 
cient to exhaust — at the admirable prolongation 
of one of the most beautiful manifestations of an 
age gone by. 

. . . France was the "soldier of God" — a fine 
title, for it was the name of the ideal of the age 
of history when it was current. Her thinkers 
and her Revolution maintained her, or, if you will, 



244 FKANCE FACING GERMANY 

confirmed her, through her development, in the 
role of the champion of ideas. That is why all 
the rage of these savage hordes is turned against 
us. The Garibaldis are at our side, as a presage 
of Italy. A salutation to them! Their place was 
clear in such a combat. They bring us their 
hearts ; they bring us their swords. May sad days 
be shortened by their efforts! Italy must come 
into being, as well in her Latin conscience as in 
her territorial integrity. Is it not so, Rieciotti? 

February 20, 1915. 



On the Arduous Path 

Since this war is one of the entire world, on 
account of the universality of the principles in- 
volved in it, there has been unprecedented activity 
in the diplomatic sphere during the full tide of 
hostilities. 

Of course, it has always been questions of 
supremacy which have thrown peoples and 
sovereigns into bloody conflicts. The peculiarity 
of the present case is that at the point of world- 
wide civilization to which we have come, with all 
the peoples, even of the most distant continents, 
living in the same ideas and under a plan of 
organization very nearly common, that one of 
them who launches upon an enterprise of general 
domination, with the effect of bringing the great 
powers to swords' points, at once appears as a 
universal menace to the industrious peace which 
is the righteous aspiration of the entire world. 

I say nothing of the grand conquerors of Asia, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 245 

whose impulse to conquest was destroyed by the 
resistance, more or less passive, of amorphous 
tribes between whom no bond of solidarity was 
as yet manifested. Moreover, they lacked fer- 
tile lands, since they were barred by moun- 
tains or oceans which, in those times, were 
insuperable obstacles. Alexander was stopped 
by the Indus, so easy to-day for us to reach. 
The work of the great Eoman conquests, sym- 
bolized in Caesar, however far it might ex- 
tend, found itself held in cheek by strict bound- 
aries which the indolent traveler of to-day may 
cross without even giving a thought to those who 
have opened a path for him. The Orient closed 
itself to Alexander, and Europe opened itself to 
Csesar, but already it was no longer for the 
uncontrolled domination of a master, but for early 
organizations of civilized society which were go- 
ing to live and grow at the expense even of Some, 
herself the generating force of the law and 
justice on which modern societies were to be 
founded. 

After long centuries during which the passion 
for oppression was ingloriously exalted above the 
obscure need of honoring and liberating the in- 
dividual, there appeared the marvel of the wars 
for freedom of the French Revolution, which it 
was Napoleon's supreme error to misunderstand 
so fully that he sought in them only the occasion 
to reestablish, in new forms, the power of domina- 
tion that was irretrievably condemned. He was 
magnificently capable of turning his people into 
machines for slaughter, but it was a personal 
enterprise far more than one of the French spirit; 



246 FEANCE FACING GEEMANY 

though the French mind was long enthusiastic 
over the military tradition and unwilling to un- 
derstand how far astray from its original purpose 
the great Corsican oppressor had led it. 

After that enormous earthquake, the leaders of 
nations and the nations themselves sought an 
equilibrium, more or less, without succeeding in 
obtaining it. Wrapped in her great memories, 
France above all was dreaming, Britain was or- 
ganizing continents for her own prosperity, and 
Germany was advancing vigorously in militarism. 
It was from this tangle of ambitions for economic 
and military conquest that the great conflict of 
Europe, and through Europe of all the world, 
was inevitably to burst forth. Everyone felt it 
vaguely, but very rare were the men who dared 
to submit the problem as it stood to public con- 
sideration. For my own modest part, obsessed 
by the growing menace since the peace of Frank- 
fort, I fearlessly faced the pathetic anger of those 
politicians enamored of colonization who, without 
discoverable colonists, wasted, in money and in 
men, more than it would have been necessary, from 
the first, to assemble, concentrate, and utilize to 
high efficiency, in order to be able to meet the 
formidable drive which so many signs showed to 
be in preparation against us. 

Far from that, a few days before the declara- 
tion of war, we were loftily discussing the ques- 
tion as to how far it might be well to weaken 
our troops of first resistance while still preserving 
a proper appearance of military organization on 
paper. 

February 24, 1915. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 247 

Destiny 

... It is obvious enough, at the end of seven 
terrible months, that this war is one of endurance, 
in which great surprises will probably remain 
impossible. To judge objectively, it is unde- 
niable that Germany, with soldiers from whom 
much can be required, and with an accumulation 
of military resources beyond precedent, is evin- 
cing a remarkably obstinate resistance. But what- 
ever the supreme convulsions of mad ambition 
in disappointment may do, whatever damages 
they may still inflict on us, we have and are 
developing each day, over Germany, the superior- 
ity of a cause in which all the interests of justice 
and even of existence are combined. The sudden 
change at the Marne, which was above all one 
that took place in the soldiers, that is to say, in 
a people armed, has given us, for a definitive ad- 
vantage, such complete confidence in our military 
and moral forces that we should find, in a tempo- 
rary reverse, only an occasion for sacrifice even 
greater yet than we have made so far. 

If it were not an injustice to our soldiers of 
the first hour, I should say that our young recruits 
surpass, in the impulses of their irresistible dar- 
ing, all the renown that our greatest soldiers had 
gained up to this day. All the soul of the France 
of history is in them. In brief moments of hero- 
ism incessantly renewed, they epitomize the 
legendary nobility of a people whose impress upon 
civilization could not be effaced except by a uni- 
versal return of the human species to savagery. 
Glory to this young generation in whom we have 



248 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

put tlie best of ourselves, and who are unspar- 
ingly giving the fulness of their lives before they 
have even lived! These men know what they 
desire, what they do, and what they will leave 
imperishable behind them. They would per- 
petuate France — France living and beautiful, in 
that life and beauty which she has inherited from 
the great names of her past. 

We had made enough mistakes to disunite her 
when she appeared. We do not deny our many 
divergent efforts towards the high ideal, on the 
paths to which the noblest conscience may go 
astray. France is such as we inherited her, such 
as we have preserved her,- — extreme in enthusi- 
asms, for which the very first condition is that 
cold calculation is excluded. More fruitful are 
these fragmentary efforts at liberty than full 
unity in a servitude 6f passive weakness, — but on 
condition, only, that on the day when fate wills 
it, the nation, the entire nation, recover its power 
of undivided will. That day has finally come, 
brought on by the treacherous aggression of 
Germany, and from seeing us at our task Germany 
must surely learn that when she wished to destroy 
us she was able only to incite us to the full realiza- 
tion of combined energy that we had lacked. 

In proportion as our young recruits arrive at 
the front, their increasing ardor will make way 
against a diminished young generation in spiked 
helmets, not one of whom could give reason for 
his being in the trenches, except that he has been 
told that Germany must rule the world and that 
this could not come to pass without the destruc- 
tion of enormous masses of humanity. 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 249 

As for yon, feeble creatures, who perhaps will 
be partly liberated from your masters by the 
defeat which we are getting ready to inflict on 
you, you can oppose us only with the pitiful power 
of your muscles, while each day that dawns brings 
to us ever more of purpose and determination. 
Come out of your burrow, poor slaves to your 
own infirmity. Our children, to whom treachery 
is unknown, will ground their arms to give you 
the time to look around. Cast your eyes on your 
leaders, all these Junkers tamed to imperialism 
like yourself, who drive you on to murders and 
atrocities unknown to the savage beast. They 
dare not confess as yet that the inevitable defeat 
is on its way, but they have no longer the excuse 
of even a barbarian's good faith, for hurling you 
like cannon-fodder, without possible hope, into 
monstrous and henceforth useless butcheries. 

Look at the horizon, see all the peoples of the 
world, many of them indifferent at first, now 
turning their backs on your master, who bears on 
his forehead the mark of the damned. We are 
fighting, we British and French and Eussians 
who have so often fought one another, we are 
fighting for our right to live in Freedom, which 
implies your right also, though you have not yet 
been able to understand it. Of friends you have 
none; you are aided solely by an enslaved 
Austria, and feared by the feeble hearts whom 
you threaten or whom you have despoiled. But 
behold how, by our efforts, fear is disappearing 
from the peoples, and those who used to tremble 
before you are now looking into your eyes and 
taking your measure, whereas your own people, 



250 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

back behind you, while awaiting the annihilation 
of England and the sack of Paris, are quarreling 
over bits of black bread or a few potatoes. 

That is enough. You have seen. Now plunge 
into the mud of your trench, and then meditate, 
if you can, upon yourself and those who brought 
you to this pass. Look out, the eyes of our little 
soldiers are showing fire. Cannoneers, to your 
guns! Let Destiny speak. 

Our Men and Theirs 

... In the life of peoples, as of individuals, 
there come tragic hours which must determine 
their nobility or baseness according to the force 
of their wills. (Fortune offers herself to man 
encircled by a higher destiny.) If he allows her 
to pass, she will have disappeared from the 
horizon before he has ceased taking counsel with 
himself. If, at the first impulse, he attempts to 
conquer her, the spirit that moves him is worthy 
of victory, and in this lies the first requisite for 
triumph. By the same right as Miltiades and 
Themistocles, Leonidas became a victor. Al- 
though mankind has made much progress, since 
their age, the moral problem has in nowise 
changed. It is still a question of the development 
in man of a superhuman power which cannot 
exist without painful sacrifices to the common 
wretchedness of our feeble human nature. Ani- 
mated by the spirit of a shop-keeper, Miltiades 
would never have known the plain of Marathon. 

The hero commands his destiny. 

Thus did the Belgians, when the German 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 251 

served on them his insolent summons to submit, 
for they had no other protection but that of the 
right, no guarantee but that of sworn faith. 

. . . Our information about the great deeds of 
the Russian army arrives in a very irregular 
fashion. We have learned enough to render 
homage to the brilliance of an unconquerable and 
unsurpassable valor. With their tendency to 
look upon war as only a higher form of sport, the 
British soldiers have inscribed upon their annals 
such deeds as without subtracting from the glory 
of their ancestors, give them claim to a renown 
which perhaps only the greatest of those an- 
cestors can share. If I dared, I should call them 
preeminent among their peers. 

As for us, there is no more to say. The Ger- 
mans themselves, whose effort, it must be under- 
stood, has not diminished on account of the 
multiple dangers that press upon them, pause in 
their reports to testify to their stupefaction. Our 
young men are simply intoxicated with joyous 
courage and each incident of battle only 
strengthens it, and strengthens it beyond measure. 
Some day a lucky man who will not have known, 
as we do, the anxiety of these dark hours, will 
write the history of them, and, dazzled by so many 
marvels, will wonder if really such boys ever 
lived. 

There is no way of praising them. To render 
them immortal in the memory of men, it is only 
needful to describe them. Permit me the privilege 
of a single example, the day's work of a little 
soldier of eight jen years, who, in a furious of- 



252 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

fensive, saw his entire company cut down. He 
remained alone ; with the flag, to fall quickly, un- 
wounded, into a trench. The hours passed in 
the tumult of battle, and, when night had finally 
come, the trooper climbed out with his flag and 
began to crawl toward the French lines — with an 
uncertain sense of direction. For three kilometers 
he was still doubtful about his way. He was at 
the end of his strength when he saw a hut, to 
which he went to seek a little rest. He entered. 
Five German officers were there, killed by a shell 
that had just exploded. A sixth, with his entrails 
laid bare, was groaning in agony. Caught under 
the corpses, he could not disengage himself, 
and begged the new arrival to lend him aid. 
The little Frenchman came to his help, and the 
German, who was on the point of death, surprised 
at the sight of this boy draped in his flag, de- 
manded what he was doing there. The boy told 
of his adventure, and the German, forgetting 
himself, cried out in admiration. Tears came to 
his eyes. "You are a brave boy!" he cried. "I 
am going to die in a moment. Come and kiss 
me first and then get away from here. Not in 
the direction you were going — our men would 
take you. Yours are on the other side." 

The two men kissed each other, and the little 
soldier began to crawl again. How long it lasted 
he does not know himself. The next day our 
men found him unconscious, still rolled up in his 
flag. A day of rest, and little Sergeant Bourgoin 
was again in his place in the trenches, with the 
medaille militaire in memory of an unforgetable 
day. He is but one. There are many others. I 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 253 

tell you one could never count to the end of them. 
How he must be envied by the good soldier of 
some neutral country who rises every morning 
wondering whether the bargaining of his gov- 
ernment will make of him a hero, or a fine parade 
soldier profiting by the bravery of others ! 

March 14, 1915. 

Messieubs, Faites Votke Jeu! 

. . . We are in the process of pushing back — 
slowly, it is true, but very surely — the soldiers 
of Wilhelm II out of our land. It will take much 
more time, undoubtedly, than would have been 
necessary if new assistance had come to us. But 
we feel that we have great strength of patience 
and courage, we have at our disposal resources 
that keep increasing every day, and success is 
not a thing to dishearten men whose morale was 
never higher than during our first reverses. 
Finally, we have admirable allies, who are fight- 
ing, as we are, for the right to life, and, like us, 
will spare no effort up to their last breath. Never 
was France more calm, because she was never 
more resolute. 

Shall we say it all! For the honor of our 
history, were it not for the sad harvest of human 
lives, we might perhaps blame ourselves for 
desiring other friends. Everyone, in this enor- 
mous upheaval of peoples, has chosen his place 
as he sees fit. With the Germans at Lille, at 
Arras, at Rheims, at Soissons, at Noyon, our 
pride is so great that even the situation which 



254 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

we are maintaining appears to ns enviable, be- 
cause we know better than anyone what we are 
still capable of accomplishing. Let destiny fol- 
low its course. With allies who have historically 
been our adversaries, and in spite of friends be- 
come neutral, we shall make our place in the 
sun, without stooping to ill-feeling, which might 
be transformed into ill-will. Our cause is that 
of all, even that of the indifferent, even that of 
those who feign not to know that we are fight- 
ing for them in fighting for ourselves, even of 
those who see nothing in the greatest upheaval 
of civilization but an opportunity to add personal 
profits to the general benefit of a victory which, 
through us, will be that of mankind. 

For the stake is not the same for the two sides, 
since Germany is fighting to oppress the peoples 
of the earth, while our victory will mean her own 
deliverance as well as that of her intended victims. 

March 16, 1915. 



VI 

THE WAR OF ENDUEANCE 
A Testimonial 

. . . With a mute simplicity that disconcerts 
admiration, with a tireless and heroic resolution 
that astonishes everyone except themselves, chil- 
dren and old men have undertaken great sacrifices 
and are dedicating their strength at every hour 
of the day without ever complaining that too 
much is asked of them. Therefore a foreigner 
gives us very great pleasure when, in order to 
praise our men worthily, he thinks it sufficient 
to describe with entire impartiality the exhibi- 
tions of daily exertion which he had the privilege 
of seeing among us. This is what Mr. Wythe 
Williams has done in the New York Times, with 
an abundance of detail which marks a scrupu- 
lously exact observer. 

I acknowledge that concerning the material 
furnishings of the trenches his optimism, cor- 
roborated, moreover, by copious evidence, has not 
ceased to surprise me at the mention of unex- 
pected refinements of comfort. Without the 
danger which is the principal charm amid those 
furnishings, perhaps residence among them would 
lose its most powerful attraction. Even in such 
things, however, the agreeable addition of a very 

255 



256 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

modest superfluity to what is the first necessity 
is the touching evidence of a state of mind of 
which neither the calm nor the gaiety can he 
altered by the omnipresent menace of death. In 
the foreshortened picture which the American 
journalist has been pleased to draw we have 
recognized our actual living men — those boys 
who, like Bourgoin, at eighteen, unconsciously 
awaken the affectionate admiration of the most 
professionally hardened hearts among an im- 
placable enemy, or those "old fellows'' like 
Collignon, very near to his declining years, who 
died with the flag around his breast, having de- 
cided that, for him, there was no honor higher 
than that of a simple private. How shall one ever 
tell of them, all those stout hearts whose aspira- 
tion surpasses the ordinary measures of our com- 
mon judgments! We shall never tell their story. 
We shall take one or another of them at hazard 
and say, ' ' They were all like that. ' ' And the fine 
thing, the surpassing thing, is that this will be 
literally true. 

In it all there are marvels which no one seemed 
to expect and which can be produced only among 
peoples capable of maintaining, in the worst ex- 
tremities of fortune, resources of will superior to 
any circumstances. Such are the French of to-day. 
Such must be the French of to-morrow. These 
silent heroes speak more eloquently than all the 
legal hair-splitters of the government. In them 
has France recognized herself, re-discovered her- 
self. With the same enthusiasm in which their 
great ancestors created her, they are creating her 
anew, whether they live or die, inspired by a 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 257 

tireless, heroic resolution in which their splendid 
ingenuous natures see nothing but simple duty. 

That is why Mr. Wythe Williams, after passing 
the day going from trench to trench, chatting with 
the officers, paternal and good-natured, and with 
the men clinging to the wall of the trench or 
resting on the straw — a little chilly, whatever he 
may say of it — of the " redoubt, " delivered an 
opinion that is sufficient to make us proud of our 
friends and brothers and children: 

' * After giving full consideration to the numer- 
ous statements that the German army is the 
greatest righting machine that the world has ever 
seen, all I can say is that the greatest fighting 
machine that I have ever seen is the French army. 

"To me it seems invincible, from the point of 
view of its power, of its intelligence, and of its 
' humanity. ' It is this last trait, above all, that 
impressed me." 

Is not this something like a decoration for 
France before the assembled peoples? Our "new 
spirit of organization" struck Mr. Wythe Wil- 
liams in his visit to the armies. This laudation 
would be still more grateful to us if we might 
extend it to the civilians. Let us accept it as 
the hope of a beginning, coming from the thick 
of the action itself. 

I am surprised, I admit, that the glance of a 
foreigner should have penetrated so profoundly 
as when our friendly visitor associates the idea 
of an invincible army with the high moral con- 
sideration of its humanity. The whole spirit of 
the French is verily represented in this, equally 
prompt to show the excess of its faults and of 



258 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

its virtues, but always ready, under the influence 
of a high moral cause, for sacrifice beyond what 
it seemed possible to ask. Mr. Wythe Williams 
is right in proclaiming it, although it is almost 
a stroke of genius for a foreigner to have been 
able to discover it. Assuredly we want our right- 
ful place, great and glorious, — we should not be 
men if we could feel otherwise, — but we desire 
it for the advantage of all as much as those who 
shall have won it. 

We have often been especially reproached as 
thinkers of general thoughts, but general 
thoughts, which must of necessity be generous 
thoughts, carry with them, if one can avoid the 
danger of living in more abstraction, great and 
noble compensations. That is what brings to the 
lips of Mr. Wythe Williams the words about our 
army being "invincible from the point of view 
of its power, of its intelligence, and of its human- 
ity," with the final remark that "it is this last 
trait, above all, that impressed me." Ah, yes! 
These are not machines of murder, these soldiers 
whom bursting shells enliven and to whom the 
bayonet alone gives a sudden flash of fury, these 
are not the artistically forged and refined pieces 
of a machine for butchery, these are men, imper- 
fect, indeed, but capable of the heroic fulfilment 
of their nature in the supreme glory of full sacri- 
fice for an idea— that is to say, for a glimpse of 
an ideal to be realized. 

Herein Mr. Wythe Williams will find the true 
reason for that natural and touching fraternal 
spirit between officers and men. All, with the same 
impulse, are giving themselves for that France 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 259 

which they have resolved to save, but all, from the 
extreme socialist to the extreme reactionary of the 
Syllabus, derive a higher power, an invincible 
power, from this claim, the grandeur of which is 
incontestable^ that France constitutes in their eyes 
an inexhaustible reservoir of "intelligence' ' and 
of "humanity." It is at once the tradition of the 
French Eevolution and of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence of the United States. 

And in that case, what becomes, it may be asked, 
of the difference in ideals? Is it necessary to rise 
as high as Sirius in order to reduce it to its true 
proportion! The absolute ideal is not given to 
man ; we know that but too well. The most igno- 
rant among us has received assurances that what 
we call truth is only an elimination, more or less 
complete, of errors. In the hours of crisis, mod- 
esty is imposed upon our declarations. Do you 
not admire the way in which everyone, at the first 
sign of the general peril, tacitly took for his domi- 
nant principle the obligation to subordinate every- 
thing to duties so all-important that they pass 
even beyond the interest of the country, since the 
future of the race is involved in them? 

We shall come back to ourselves, calmed, al- 
tered, transformed. Of the various ideals we 
shall retain especially those which can exist to- 
gether and cooperate. For when we have united 
our ranks against the enemy we shall less easily 
be willing to disunite them. Of course parties in 
power will seek to regain advantages. The instinct 
of national safety will rise above all. Look at 
what came of the political undertaking of a pre- 
tended ' ' religious renaissance. ' ■ When it became 



260 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

apparent that the Pope was not willing to condemn 
Austria, the last support of his temporal power, 
and that his benevolence toward devastated Bel- 
gium was a matter of pure form, while the dark 
Eomist circle of the Osservatore Romano, a Vati- 
can newspaper, was exerting all its zeal to keep 
Italy from intervening in favor of the Triple 
Entente, silence quickly followed here as to the 
revival of Catholicism. A fine enough lesson on 
which everyone may mediate when, in spite of 
so much feebleness in high places, our great and 
good people, with their resolution and their cour- 
age and their blood, shall have created France 
anew, the France of humanity! 

March 26, 1915. 

Adieu, Bkandes 

Adieu, Brandes. In order that conversation 
may be anything more than mere clatter of words, 
certain common traits of feeling and of thought 
are necessary. I discover nothing like this between 
us. I will agree that it is my fault if I have been 
able to disdain your character and intelligence so 
deeply. There is no other way for me to expiate 
my error than to confess it in all sincerity and to 
renounce, without reproach, all useless efforts at 
conciliation between minds that can no longer be 
conciliated. 

When I have said, indeed, that I do not under- 
stand you, I have not sufficiently shown the 
irremediable disagreement between us. I should 
have to find formulas in words not yet invented, 
to express the absolute alienation between our 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 261 

ways of seeing and understanding, during the 
frightful tempest of fire and blood which human 
wills have set loose upon Europe and which ap- 
pears to be the greatest terrestrial catastrophe 
that history has ever known. 

In this irreducible conflict for which a solution 
cannot be found except in the military success of 
one side or the other, I believe it true that there 
is no continent, no people, no man, even among 
those most obscurely traveling in the paths of 
civilization, who does not find himself interested. 
And since I try, at least, to seek an explanation 
for what I do not understand, I have come to 
reconstruct the psychology of the human proc- 
esses which have engulfed Europe and Asia in 
this unspeakable adventure. I may thus, in good 
faith, reach a classification and an interpretation 
of the phenomena of nature which produce, in 
legitimate descent from a Bismarck, a Wilhelm 
II, worthy chief of a German people. 

Of a truth, the Germans show us nothing new 
under the sun, for, since the appearance of the 
first human beings, the rule of brutal violence 
has endeavored to institute itself among us. 
What is novel in their case, in the enterprise of 
universal mastery to which they pretend that 
their peculiar Kultur gives them the right, is that 
they philosophically arrogate to themselves the 
distinction of a providential superhuman nature 
which confers on them a power of ruling over 
all peoples, and which legalizes the worst out- 
rages. Down at bottom there was doubtless 
something of this mental teratology in the dark 
brain of Attila. The great weakness of the vol- 



262 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

canic explosion is that it has no consciousness 
of the human misery that it causes. Whether it 
is superior or inferior to the men — since we must 
give them this name — of Louvain, of Dinant, or 
of Rheims, each of us is free to judge as long 
as he has not the saber of Wilhelm II over his 
head. 

In any case, the manifestations of brute force 
in the world, and the resistance of the feeble 
in coalition, in the name of a rule of law and 
justice which everyone admits in words on con- 
dition of being able to violate it more or less in 
deeds, is the very substance of history. I should 
be unpardonable, therefore, if I had discovered 
in the Kaiser and his people in arms anything 
fundamentally different from earlier exhibitions 
of humanity. The "ancient German God," even, 
shows no advance over the fetish of the savage. 

What does not fail at present to disconcert the 
majority of civilized minds, outside of Berlin and 
Copenhagen, is that so many centuries of intel- 
lectual and moral culture should suddenly come 
to a climax in the explosion of primitive instincts. 
But what is this in comparison with the spectacle 
given us by a man, assuredly free from all base 
motives, who is yet led by I know not what secret 
paths of superculture to take sides furtively 
against the elementary rights of nations and of 
individuals, in favor of the brutal power from 
which his own country and he himself have suf- 
fered so cruelly! 

Yes, I say "take sides," O Brandes, in spite 
of all the trouble you are at in order to seem not 
to do so. For you will catch no one in the net 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 263 

of your artful reticence on certain points, the 
puerility of which is obvious to every eye. Do 
you think that those of our men who are giving 
their lives, day by day, for the defense of the 
native soil have not gained the right to judge 
you — you who renounce so easily your duties as 
a judge? They proclaim that in the presence of 
an outrage, private or public, he who does not 
take sides is by that fact declaring himself, and 
with the additional shame of questionable sin- 
cerity. In the present case there stand before the 
victim the party who holds the knife, the party 
who assists him, and the party who, capable of 
interceding by word or act, lifts his eyes to 
heaven in order that he may be able to say, "I 
have seen nothing.'' 

Yes, Brandes, but you are not even that party, 
for, behold, there come over you scruples in favor 
of those who are repeating against us the crime 
from which you have suffered. You do not desire 
the humiliation of Germany. Whatever might 
happen, your name would doubtless be preserved 
from oblivion (if that word has a meaning before 
the eternity of time and space). But this par- 
ticular phrase which you have spoken, in the 
circumstances in which it escaped you, perhaps 
assures you a place still more permanent in the 
memory of man by its attestation of a state of 
mind quite fitted to justify all the great public 
evil-doers in the annals of mankind. 

What, indeed, could better reinforce outrages 
against the right than the submission of servile 
minds, or the alacrity of " thinkers" to put them- 
selves in the service of the force that oppresses 



264 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

them? To enslave mankind there must doubtless 
be Kaisers and Treitschkes and Bernhardis. 
There must also be Ostwalds (who have the ex- 
cuse of their nationality) and men like Brandes, 
playing the role of wounded soldier on the field 
of battle who should rise to fight against the 
cause of which they were the honor. This I am 
obliged to admit, since I have the spectacle be- 
fore my eyes, but we may be permitted to infer 
the glory of the men by the novelty of the act. 

Yes, remember it, reader, the fear of Mr. 
Brandes, in the present circumstances, is that 
Germany may be "humiliated." Denmark was 
humiliated by the race of masters who compose 
the German people; France also, I believe, and 
even Belgium. Perhaps Brandes will admit so 
much. He did not protest. He even refuses to 
express himself upon these matters, alleging that 
his silence (verbose enough) is golden — a kind of 
gold that would not show well against the touch- 
stone. But his supreme fear is that the plotters 
of the greatest outrage against civilization, 
against the freedom of peoples, against the honor 
of the human race, the authors of the appalling 
crimes from which Belgium and France are still 
bleeding, should undergo a humiliation. Let my 
country be conquered, torn to shreds, blown to 
bits by German cannon before a Frenchman finds 
himself of that sentiment! 

Yes, I know your apology, Georg Brandes, for 
something warns you, in spite of yourself, that 
possibly you accept this " humiliation, ' ' which 
you do not desire for Germany, with a rather easy 
resignation for your own country, as for yourself. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 265 

What do yon say, then! That France did not 
come to your aid when yon were dismembered. 
I am sorry for it. But since dismemberments are 
increasing, is there not the more canse for anxiety 
among those who may have preserved some re- 
gard for national independence, or even for the 
most elementary honor of individuals? Don't 
scream, Brandes ! I do not claim that this should 
bring you into the war. You say that you are 
neutral because the neutrality of Denmark has 
been proclaimed in an official notice placarded 
by your king. I did not know that this monarch 
had the power of abolition over conscience. 

No one would ever have asked you to do any- 
thing in contravention of Danish neutrality. 
But you are a man, just as you are a Dane, 
and it was your judgment as a man that I asked 
for, and which you refuse to make known, not for 
the reason that you give, but because, man to man, 
what remains to you of critical power does not 
permit you to brave it. Allow me to present to 
you an eminent Spanish journalist, M. C. Ibanez 
de Ibero, who recently wrote : ' ' My country is neu- 
tral, and I approve its neutrality, but as for me, 
I am not neutral.' ' Excellent words — but a hard 
lesson. 

Make yourself easy, moreover. France has 
truly been punished enough for not having recog- 
nized her duty toward your country. Our chil- 
dren, on the field of battle, are expiating the fault 
of their fathers, without even asking help. But I 
think you would search vainly in the world, out- 
side of the parts involved, for someone to under- 
stand why, because a nation which is victimized 



266 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

as you were did not help you, you should be 
obliged to take pity on the common executioner. 

That has seemed to me the last possible word 
of your abdication. But you were saving for me 
a still greater surprise. I learn from you now 
that even if we should offer to replace your Danish 
compatriots of Schleswig in the lap of the mother 
country, you would hesitate at an acceptance 
which might make Germany unfriendly to you. 
That is the last word. Seek no deeper abyss under 
your feet. There is none. The idea of driving 
back Danes from their native land because those 
who had torn them away from it might be dis- 
pleased seems to me so near to dementia (to em- 
ploy too soft a word) that men have not yet cre- 
ated an epithet worthy to qualify it. 

I stop here, Brandes, for you cannot suppose 
that I shall pause over the minor issues with which 
you have the innocence to tempt me. You bring 
charges against Russia. You will never do so 
more severely than I have pursued the criticism 
of the republican rule in my own country. All 
peoples and all governments have their faults. I 
must avow that this does not prevent the Slavic 
mind from appearing very glorious to me, or me 
from expecting from it a strong influence toward 
a revival of the European conscience which your 
Germany is making a methodical and implacable 
effort to annihilate. I have the ambition to be and 
to remain a defender of the Poles. How can you 
forget to say a single word about the German rule 
that makes the Poles in Posen bleed so cruelly? 
Our victory, as I have written, would free the Ger- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 267 

mans themselves from servitude — supposing that 
their temperament permits it. 

Russia, England, and France, whose union must 
be maintained indissolubly, after the war, are 
fighting against Germany to maintain their right 
to independence, that is to say, to maintain con- 
ditions of existence without which life is but deg- 
radation. The small states, whether they have 
fought or not, will profit like all the others. So 
much the worse for those that do not understand 
it. You remind me, with a delectable irony, that 
we are not yet victors. It is the truth. Give us 
time. It is not enough to have passed through our 
country to know it. There is a power in us that 
your intelligence could not grasp unless something 
of the heart was combined with it. A month before 
the war I wrote to a journalist at Vienna, "I 
should rather see France annihilated than sub- 
jected." Everyone can choose for his own coun- 
try. Our choice is irrevocable. If fortune were 
adverse to us, you would learn what that means. 
You see that conversation between us is hence- 
forth without object. Adieu, Brandes. 

March 29, 1915, 

Feom the Mountains 

... I should like to acknowledge the excellent 
article in which M. Scarfoglio, of the Mattino of 
Naples, has had the kindness to attest his good- 
will for us in the present circumstances. Not to 
mention his aid in enlightening his own country- 
men, I thank him for the comfort he has brought 



268 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

to the brave men who are ready to give their all 
in silence for a great and noble canse bnt who are 
gratified to feel that their racial brothers remain 
faithful to them in thought and are able to judge 
them as their common ancestors would have done. 

Of the marvelous recovery of courage and 
strength of which the battle of the Marne gave 
evidence, M. Scarfoglio speaks without ostenta- 
tion, but with the simple sobriety of a writer who 
needs only to contrast the false picture of the al- 
leged degeneracy of France with the moving spec- 
tacle of reality. All the men are at the front, all 
the French are devoted to self-sacrifice. The sol- 
diers astonish with their joyous valor an enemy 
who thought them beaten; the women, in their 
proud serenity, give up their sons in one accord 
of mute heroism; the entire nation is calmly re- 
solved upon the last sacrifice for duty to their 
country: that is what he has seen and what he 
tells with the simplicity of expression which the 
mere glory of the events required. 

The icy winter, the wind, rain, snow, and the 
mud of the trenches have been equally incapable 
with the tempest of steel and fire to affect for a 
moment the unchangeable good humor of the 
heroes who make game of danger. With smiles on 
their lips, with eyes shining in joyous promise, our 
noble wounded soldiers, cane or crutch in hand, 
fill our boulevards with invincible hope, and all 
that crowd, clad, alas, in mourning, but among 
whom one would seek in vain for the drawn faces, 
the brusque gestures, and the shrill words, which 
are the precursive signs of enervation — that is the 
French people who are marching, sustained by a 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 269 

tranquil resolution such as in the greatest days 
of their history they have probably not known. 

In the peaceful vales of Normandy we see 
women busy cultivating the fields, with children 
proud to offer the aid of their little hands, while 
aged men are driving the plow. Placid at their 
work, the housewives in all the villages are taking 
care of the cattle or are knitting for the soldiers. 
Not a cry arises to break the dramatic silence 
which those who are absent have left behind them. 
All these people are silent, but not even from re- 
pressed sorrow or anger; they are silent in a se- 
erene resolution which has become incarnate in all 
their feelings and thoughts and actions, and above 
which they consider no interest of their own or of 
others. So it is with our Parisians whom I meet 
promenading every Sunday, in the park at Saint- 
Cloud and as far as the forest of Saint-Germain. 
This is what has impressed M. Scarfoglio above 
all, and with reason. They are silent, with the 
quiet look of satisfaction belonging to people who 
have given themselves entirely to a single duty 
and who are living, at peace, in a single thought. 

March 30, 1915. 



As to Shirkers 

Death is leaving terrible gaps. We must fill the 
empty places in the ranks. Resolved on any sac- 
rifice, the French cannot think of bargaining about 
this. In the Chambers, not a voice has been heard 
which could be interpreted as a sigh. There is no 
sorrow that can force a cry of pain from us. We 



270 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

must win at any price; we have no other law; we 
can know no other. With hope in our hearts we 
have seen departing those whom France called 
first. With the same inspiration of hope invin- 
cible we shall send into the battle, in which we will 
not accept defeat for our country, those whom we 
were saving for the France of to-morrow, and 
who, at the dawn of life, will rush gladly into the 
terrible conflict for the France of to-day. There- 
fore, no partial reservation, no vain discussion! 
We are told that the hour has come. And with 
one voice we answer : let destiny be fulfilled. 

Nevertheless there is no need to say that such 
sacrifices cannot be agreed to except in the spirit 
in which they are demanded ; that is to say, on the 
express condition that they cannot be avoided. 
What kind of men should we be if, when we are 
asked to throw the budding flower of our youth 
into the furnace, we were not moved solely by a 
conviction of unescapable necessity? Yes, we will 
give all of those whom the country asks of us, all, 
as many as may be required. We will give them 
with an impassive countenance, without voicing 
the feeblest murmur which might let our friends 
or enemies know that our hearts have bled. We 
will give them, as they will go, in the transport of 
an inward inspiration in which all French hearts 
are united to make, out of their purest blood, what 
is strongest and grandest in our country. 

We have seen the recruits of 1915 and of 1916 
leaving with the pride of an adolescence which is 
making for itself, at this very hour, a place worthy 
of their great ancestors in a history in which the 
nobility of a race has been magnificently demon- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 271 

strated. Far from frightening them, the grandeur 
of their predecessors only excites in them the irre- 
sistible desire to surpass their forefathers. Their 
sublime idea is the wish to be greater than the 
greatest, and if I did not fear that it would be a 
blasphemy I should say that some of them could 
already boast an ability to excite the jealousy of 
ancestors who would not have admitted that they 
could be surpassed. 

The recruits of 1917, who are to follow, are of 
the same lineage. On the triumphal monument of 
Rude, to which I refer repeatedly, you will find the 
image of their predecessors offering themselves, 
in a Hellenic nudity, at the call of the great, 
frenzied goddess whose arm is opening, with her 
sword, the grand path to glory on which they are 
to launch forth. Their eyes wandering in the in- 
toxication of a dream, their hands repressing the 
beatings of hearts charged with irresistible force, 
they are going, proud and serene, to the highest 
destiny of humanity. The immortal Phidias of 
the Parthenon could only bring forth marvelous 
fictions out of his Pentelic marble even after Mara- 
thon, Salamis, and Plataea. Under the inspired 
hand of our creator in stone we see passing old 
men, young men, and boys, who are going to real- 
ize and live the legend which art will exhaust its 
genius in celebrating. And with these children, 
who have become our fathers, carrying in their 
hearts all the France of the past, all the France 
of the future — with all our people, with the his- 
tory which they have made by their creative will, 
we ourselves are entering, in our turn, in the eager 
procession of a mad Panathena&a to which is given 



272 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

all that we have of life for the struggle to preserve 
what is purest in the country of our ideal. 

We gave yesterday all that the war demanded, 
we are giving to-day all that it demands, and we 
shall give to-morrow also all that it may require. 
Nevertheless, it cannot be permitted that our peo- 
ple should be regarded only as an inexhaustible 
source of noble blood which any imprudent hand 
might waste indefinitely. No one proposes this, it 
is true. But it must not be possible for imprudent 
practices to lead to the same results as might an 
ill-ordered method such as no one could entertain 
in thought. 

When the French people is giving all, who 
among them would furtively arrogate the right to 
refuse himself? Has the thing happened? Have 
we seen proof of it? It is not denied. It could 
not be denied without rousing unanimous protes- 
tations from indignant families. Fathers, mothers, 
brothers, and sisters, with their hearts on the ab- 
sent one, keep their eyes fixed on his vacant place. 
How should they repress an explosion of scorn 
and anger when they find themselves affronted by 
the strutting ostentation of idle youths? 

'April 6, 1915. 



European Revolution 

The present war offers, in itself, a revolution 
such as the earth has never seen. This word of 
" revolution' ' has always exercised a magic power 
over minds which the miseries of man have only 
driven into the vast fields of abstract theory. More 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 273 

or less, everyone suffers from a condition which 
he often has the right to consider an unhappy one. 
A change, a revolution, is a chance of respite, and, 
provided that imagination is given wing, it is, for 
the suffering masses, the hope of that chimerical 
state which perhaps only the humble can approach 
— the state of happiness. 

The French Eevolution, which filled Europe 
with a stir not yet exhausted, was one of the most 
violent cataclysms of mankind that history knows. 
But however it may have aimed to involve all 
Europe, and indeed all humanity, however much 
it may have done so, in its final results, it re- 
mained so profoundly French in idea and in action 
that neither England nor Germany, for different 
reasons, has ever been able to understand it, much 
less to profit by its results. Both of them fought 
it with an extreme violence, but without succeed- 
ing in arresting its course. 

. . . The liberation of peoples is the true pur- 
pose of the great European revolution which is 
being accomplished, at this moment, under our 
eyes. The independence of all through the equi- 
table partition of the powers of peace according 
to their legitimate affinities is the program for the 
triumph of which are fighting the allied armies 
which, to-morrow, will have put an end to the last 
convulsions of the madness of tyranny. Napoleon 
brought back from Moscow this famous phrase: 
"Europe will be Republican or Cossack.' ' In 
either case, it was the presage of his defeat — a 
sort of revenge, also, on Germany, in the true 
prophecy of a Slavic intervention in which, con- 



274 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

trary to his expectation, the rights of peoples 
must finally manifest itself. 

In her enterprises of distant conquest, Great 
JBritain had scattered over all the continents the 
fruitful seed of free government founded on au- 
thority and liberty in happy balance. Her role was 
indicated in advance. She prepared herself for it 
resolutely, in the diplomatic sphere, by her agree- 
ment with Russia. But the obstinacy of an ill- 
formed public opinion did not permit her to realize 
the* military preparation which she is exerting 
herself so magnificently to supply to-day. 

Now we are in the thick of the battle, and Great 
Britain, Eussia, and France can proudly pay them- 
selves the tribute that they have done all that could 
be done with honor to turn aside this horrible 
catastrophe from the peoples of the earth. The 
day has come — sooner than many short-sighted 
politicians had expected — when Europe finds her- 
self forced, in order to preserve peace, either to 
surrender her last guarantees of independence or 
to defend by right of arms her rights to liberty. 
The choice was made without ostentation, in the 
calm conviction that above the care even for its 
own existence a people worthy of the name must 
place respect for its historical heritage, its civil- 
ization, and its rightful place in humanity. 

On the plains where death is reaping its fright- 
ful harvest the silent soldiers of free and inde- 
pendent Europe, of the Europe of justice and 
humanity, are falling under the blows of a bar- 
barian tyranny which the age-long progress of 
mankind has condemned forever. They are fall- 
ing, but like the heroes of the legend, they fight 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 275 

on, living or dead, because it is the honor, and 
consequently the life itself, of the civilized peoples 
of Europe, which their heroism must decide. 
What greater revolution could be conceived? To 
be or not to be — shall we show ourselves worthy 
or unworthy to live? 

May 10, 1915. 

They Aee Too Amusing 

. . . From being the primitive weapon of the 
feeble, slander has remained, among us, the last 
resource of those who are not sure that their 
power is sufficient, or who think themselves in a 
position to abuse their power without being 
called to a reckoning. In 1871 we were abundantly 
insulted by all Germany at a time when she 
had nothing more to fear from our arms. Gen- 
erosity is by no means one of those " weaknesses' ' 
of which a good German could fear an excess. 
He must have his scalp-dance around his ad- 
versary tied to the post. Then he can allow him- 
self every license for outrage ; in this his splendid 
soul finds a worthy field for his magnanimity. 
The pitiful creatures of a lower order need to 
hate basely, as other men need to love. During 
a hundred years our Germans have never been 
able to forgive us the victories of Napoleon, which 
were free from the insolence with which they 
gilded their success forty years ago. 

All that time we were the people of all peoples 
to be hated. No one could be admitted to the 
honor of their heavy courtesy without seeing 
stones thrown at the French. Like the hero of 



276 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Ibsen we could make ourselves a monument of 
them. Then there came the worst outrage — that 
of the puerile blandishments intended to lull us 
into the false security of a secret admiration 
which the German, in his good nature, could not 
help feeling for us. At bottom, said he, what was 
there between us anyhow, except a great miscon- 
ception of each other's purpose? The fortune 
of battle had decided on which side of the 
boundary the arrow of Strassburg ought to be. 
What was the use of the empty satisfaction of 
pride in comparison with our common duties to- 
ward civilization? We had once been beaten. 
They had had their turn. Let's forget all that. 
There are plenty of other things to talk about. 
"France and Germany as friends would be 
masters of the world" — so ran the talk at Berlin. 

It was then that pacifist yachts took their way 
toward Kiel for manifestations in which the 
least of the dangers was that they might lead the 
Kaiser to think that our simple-mindedness 
would end in our letting ourselves be caught in 
his childish snares. Did I not hear, from the 
very mouth of a principal in the conversation, 
that a man who had held an important post in 
one of our cabinets had even permitted himself, 
in a familiar interview, good-naturedly to ask the 
Kaiser whether there might not be a day for 
Alsace-Lorraine ? 

' ' That, never ! ' ' cried the Kaiser on the instant, 
shocked to see that he had so far misled his ultra- 
simple interlocutor. 

May 24, 1915. 



FRANCE PACING GERMANY 277 

At Any Pbicb 

. . . Germany, who has taken nearly fifty years 
to plan and complete an incomparably extensive 
scheme of aggression, has succeeded in bringing 
systematically together an aggregation of ma- 
chines for slaughter such as the human mind has 
never hitherto dreamed of. 

. . . Complaints about the war-bread are no 
longer heard; following official orders, people 
carefully utilize the peelings of potatoes; the 
armies of the coalition hold their lines on four 
fronts at once; and yesterday a little soldier of 
my acquaintance, who was at Eparges, saw with 
his own eyes a troop of Boches, four ranks deep 
with six in a rank, charging in parade step, with 
savage yells, under the urging of officers, re- 
volvers in hand, behind them. It is true that 
the spectacle changes as soon as the French 
bayonet appears, and that the same witness, leap- 
ing into a German trench, could not help feeling 
acute disgust at the sight of men throwing down 
their arms and crawling to his ~knees, with tears 
and groans, to beg their lives, while others, stupe- 
fied with terror, were awaiting their fate, silently 
seated on their wounded comrades who were 
screaming with pain. 

Very different, our own men, — grumblers and 
sometimes even indolent when it comes to digging 
trenches, — but rather disposed to get ahead of 
the order when they hear the cry, "Forward!" 
Did not the same soldier see one of his comrades 
charging in bare feet because the order had sur- 



278 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

prised him with his shoes off? These are little 
signs which say a great deal, and which are not 
invented. 

June 7, 1915. 

Without Hesitation 

There are Frenchmen who are asking whether 
we are not in some measure exceeding our rights 
in responding to asphyxiating and incendiary 
bombs by destructive engines of the same kind, 
and to the aerial bombardment of Paris and the 
English coast by the bombardment of Karlsruhe. 
In all simplicity of mind, it is impossible for me 
to see in this puerile debate anything but an 
absolute misunderstanding of the causes, the pro- 
portions, the eventual results, and, therefore, of 
the basic nature of the vastest and most bloody 
conflict which has ever torn its path through the 
racial assemblages of human beings. 

. . . The famous doctrine of universal evolu- 
tion is complicated as we know, by partial or 
general regressions, more or less lasting, which 
have often misled the most careful observers. 
Out of the fall of Athens, out of the decay of 
Eome, there came, in the course of centuries, a 
renewal of progress. But we have not centuries 
at our disposal, and we are perhaps excusable in 
resisting, so far as in us lies, the regressive forces 
whose violence is raised up against our most 
timid efforts at humanitarian idealism. It re- 
mains only to decide whether we are resisting for 
the form of the thing, "to save our honor," as 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 279 

people are pleased to say, or because we have 
made an unalterable resolution to conquer at any 
price. 

In a cliivalric duel each party piques himself 
on observing all the rules of reciprocal gener- 
osity. But when a regressive assassin plunges 
into the rooms where I am slumbering, to sur- 
prise me with his implements of murder, I have 
no recourse but to reply to him with any means 
of defense that I can lay hand on. I have no 
thought but to kill him, if that is in my power. 
I cannot discover how wholesale assassination 
would at all change the problem of frightful de- 
fense which the assassin insists, from time to 
time, in forcing on us. Of course there have been 
established for the encounters of armies a certain 
number of rules which the men of that attenuated 
violence which we call civilization take pride in 
observing, but it is only too clear that if one of 
the two parties systematically violates them, his 
adversary, if he does not accept his defeat as 
inevitable, has no recourse but to conform in turn 
to the methods practised against him. 

What would the moral restraints which we im- 
pose on ourselves become without reciprocal 
return! Where would they be found if those who 
are the best representatives of them should begin 
by delivering themselves, tied hand and foot, to 
the base creatures who are not capable of exer- 
cising any constraint over their savage impulses? 
I understand that doubts may still be troubling 
the hearts of certain patriots as yet incompletely 
delivered from the mists of pacifism. We who 
never sought the war, but who accepted it be- 



280 PRANCE FACING GERMANY 

cause a clearer sight showed us that it was in- 
evitable ; we who voted for military preparedness ; 
we to whom France owes the means of defense, 
such as they are, which it was possible to ac- 
cumulate; we who have desired defense for the 
sake of conquering and of conquering at what- 
ever price, if we have not known hesitation even 
before the opening of hostilities, why should we 
weaken now, in our high resolution for safety, 
because it pleases the enemy to change the ac- 
cepted conditions of a combat to which we have 
submitted? 

Against the bayonet, against the rifle, against 
the cannon, against the mine, against the bomb, 
we fight as our enemy fights. He invents other 
weapons. So shall we. He throws liquid fire 
upon our men. So shall we upon his. He tries 
to asphyxiate us. In turn we shall gas him. And 
if his barbaric ingenuity discovers yet other 
means to murder Frenchmen we shall let him see 
that we can find new processes for murdering 
Germans. Moreover, there is no choice. If we 
did not feel in our souls the power to fight fire 
with fire in every way, we might as well go to 
meet the invader with our hands stretched out 
for his chains and with hymns of thanks on our 
lips. 

But, it is objected, we have bombarded Karls- 
ruhe, an open city? To say nothing of our open 
cities (Compiegne is the latest, I believe) where 
women and children have found death under the 
bombs of German aviators, what were the Taubes 
of the Kaiser intending to do when they dropped 
their projectiles on Scarborough, a bathing resort 



FKANCE FACING GERMANY 281 

on the English coast, or on the suburbs of Lon- 
don — an open city, it seems? Was it not only 
yesterday that a premeditated torpedo sent to the 
bottom the Lusitania, an unarmed merchant ship, 
drowning, with a criminal determination that our 
last Bonnot would have repudiated, twelve hun- 
dred non-combatants, with a hundred babies 
among them? 

And people wish that we should answer other- 
wise than by shrugging our shoulders at the ex- 
plosions of "German fury" under the bombs of 
Karlsruhe! Belgium has seen plenty of bombs, 
and the north of France also. We shall never 
do too much. We shall never do enough. Let it 
be fulfilled, the work of death which was loosed 
against us in spite of forty years of our per- 
severing efforts to turn aside this frightful trial 
from Europe. 

You willed the war. You have it, and you shall 
have it to the last drop of our blood. You wish 
war of every kind. It will be given you. Never 
shall we commit those savagely refined atrocities 
in which your soldiers have found their highest 
glory. But, to save civilization from your ig- 
nominious tyranny, we reply to a war of ex- 
termination with a war of extermination, since 
you know no other. The law of brute force which 
you pride yourself on establishing, that law we 
shall teach you to submit to. Patience yet a 
while. The war, it is said, will be long. This 
is only a beginning. 

June 23, 1915. 



282 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

They and We 

. . . Our thought and our resolution in unanim- 
ity are concentrated solely on the development of 
our military power, and if the results have not 
always been such as the indefatigable patience of 
some and the magnificent heroism of others gave 
us the right to expect, there has not been a mo- 
ment when the tranquil fortitude of our hearts 
has been capable of being shaken. 

We shall win because we have resolved to win, 
and because our resolution will endure to the 
end, whatever may come. We shall win because 
we feel that the sum of sacrifices is inexhaustible 
to which our resolution to win will be unfailingly 
exalted. We shall win because we have no choice 
except to win if we would leave the ancient land 
of the Gauls to the sons of those who fashioned 
it into a France of grandeur and of glory. We 
shall win because, if we have made great mis- 
takes, we are worthy of redeeming them. We 
shall win because Germany can offer us nothing 
but the annihilation of the French conscience as 
the first and sole condition of peace. We shall 
win because the last Frenchman left standing on 
what his feet may still occupy of French ground 
must fall before our women and children shall 
be carried away to the slavery of another Baby- 
lonian captivity, from which they would not 
escape for a renewal, worse than death, of the 
dispersion of Israel. We shall win because from 
living Frenchmen it is not possible that the world 
should hear these words : ' ' France has been. ' ? In 
the breasts of our very children the heart of our 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 283 

race beats with inexhaustible force. If the best 
employment is not always made of our will, we 
shall be able to furnish enough of it to com- 
pensate, and to repair the errors of thought and 
action under the weight of which neither the 
force of others nor feebleness among ourselves 
will succeed in overwhelming us. 

We are battling against a delirious power 
which dares to aim at the universal exploitation 
of the human race. We feel ourselves strong 
enough to make resistance. We have allies who 
have occupied and who still occupy no mean 
place in the world, nobly acquired by the action 
of their arms, by their painstaking and persever- 
ing toil, and by historic manifestations to which 
one cannot but proclaim that civilization is 
heavily indebted. Who but a madman could 
predict that all these are going to die? 

It is true that the genius of mankind can be 
turned against itself, the conscience of the world 
can be ignominiously turned aside from its pur- 
pose, corrupted in its august mission of ameliora- 
tion, perverted in its processes. Instead of 
aiding man onward to a higher destiny, it may, 
in the hands of a people of hypocritical savants, 
be perverted even into an instrument for the 
degradation of human societies which, trusting 
our thinkers, we had believed to be progressing 
toward a higher justice and a higher glory, and 
which would no longer have any ideal except the 
progress of industrialized barbarism. 

Yes. They have not feared to manifest such 
an enterprise to our eyes. I do not know what 

ancient God" appeared from the horizon to de- 



a 



284 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

mand ever more of blood and ever more of savage 
ferocity because the good of a single race could 
arise only out of universal ill. The innocent 
Moloch of ancient times desired, for the salvation 
of all, the sacrifice of a few only. This idol, for 
the pleasure of a few, exacts the punishment of 
all. 

Well — so be it ! Let the question be fought out 
on the fields of battle, since it is by fire and sword 
that the Kaiser and his people have willed that 
it should be decided. Let them perfect by learned 
calculation all manner of engines of murder and 
destruction. The childish stone which the heroes 
hurled on Trojan fields has become the shell of 
steel a yard and a half long which carries to 
a precise point twenty miles away a ton of ex- 
plosive such as will destroy in a few seconds, 
along with all the work of civilization, an inno- 
cent population which it would have been neces- 
sary troublesomely to put to the sword in an 
older day. Salutations! It is the progress of 
Germany that passes. Vessels loaded with women 
and children are sent in hundreds to the bottom 
by torpedoes. And behold the machines for 
asphyxiation that appear, with others to sprinkle 
men with flaming oil. Patience, ambitious Caesar 
of a Eome already ended, the time will come 
when, as you asked it of the gods, some means 
will be found to put an end to all human kind at 
one blow! 

What is to be done? What other answer to the 
argument of thunderbolts than to launch our 
own, if we can? And that is what we are busy 
doing. And we may do it well or ill, but we do 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 285 

it, and we shall do as long as we must, because 
we cannot do otherwise. At Waterloo, Grouchy 
did not come. It was Bllicher. History changes. 
To-day it is Grouchy who is arriving. 

Italy, after hesitating, has come to know that 
her history does not permit her to be absent from 
a combat which is that of all humanity. In every 
land where palpitate hearts moved by nobility 
and independence, peoples wish to come to our 
aid, though yet held back by jealous care for 
commercial gain, or by lack of understanding, or 
by the fear of their rulers — to say nothing of 
those who see nothing in the most noble struggle 
in the history of man but an opportunity to ac- 
quire something at the expense of another. Let 
everyone choose his place of glory or of dishonor. 

But we French, to whom the chance of waiting 
is refused, are in the thickest of the bloody con- 
flict, and we are not complaining. Our heroic 
boys are giving their lives day by day with this 
great shout in their hearts: "Mother-land, those 
who are about to die for thee, salute thee!" We 
saw them depart, knowing, as they did, that some 
would not return, and they have hardly fallen 
before another shout arises: "Take us! Give us 
the honor of following them!" And no one is 
surprised, for it is the inflexible law of our 
resolution that is being fulfilled. After those, 
others, and then others, and always others. Let 
the peoples who may, perhaps, owe something 
to us, learn this new lesson of us. One is not 
worthy to live when one does not feel himself 
worthy to die. 

June 25, 1915. 



286 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 



In Obdee to Win 

. . . Our wonderful soldier is doing his work 
and, as all the world admits, he is doing it to 
the stupefaction of those who, in order not to 
fear him, had to forget his history. But this is 
not enough. The people, whose spirit and force 
he represents, must sustain him by their moral 
support and furnish him with the means for an 
offensive. It is a supreme exertion of our hearts 
and our sinews that the country asks of us in 
this hour when, on our invaded territory, the 
fate of the French race is being decided. Ir- 
remediable failure or radiant new grandeur: fate 
has offered us only this alternative, obliging us, 
after a life of too-protracted dreams, to show 
ourselves men of obstinate endurance and resolute 
will. We have and we shall have all the valor 
that is necessary if, instead of being lured by 
the deceptive bait of an easy victory, we are 
allowed to study the obstacle truly in its many 
aspects, in order that we may, in the utmost 
frankness with ourselves, take thought as to 
whether we are great enough to surmount it. 

... In spite of the coat of mail which stiffens 
into constancy the inbred passivity of the Teutonic 
mind, we have struck it a fatal blow. The failure 
of their aggression is manifest, and, as the Ger- 
man has not found for himself any other raison 
d'etre except his function of crushing the rest of 
mankind, if such crushing is from now on im- 
possible the result must be that their failure 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 287 

leaves to the Kaiser and his people no choice but 
to succumb. 

What takes the place of public opinion in Ger- 
many — that is to say, of aspiration toward in- 
dividual thinking, which never goes so far as to 
show independence of judgment — has already 
shown so many signs of weakening that it would 
be superfluous to recount them. The men fought 
because they could not do otherwise, and hurled 
themselves upon us with the unworthy rage of 
the mastiff led by a chain. "When they attack 
us, " a wounded man was saying to me yesterday, 
"they come forward crawling right up to our 
trenches. But we stand up and we rush upon 
them with heads erect." What could better in- 
dicate the difference in combat? Their leaders, 
fully reorganized, as are ours, still succeed in 
making their powerful machinery work because 
they themselves work like machines. With us 
it is the heart that makes a hero and force of 
will a captain. Our enemies are pushed on by 
officers behind them. We are pressing onward 
and the whole fear of those in command is to see 
themselves out-distanced. 

. . . All the problems of civilization call for 
solution at once upon a line stretching from the 
North Sea to the Euphrates. It would be mad- 
ness to think that a fortunate military stroke 
could solve them all at once. Destiny has prom- 
ised us increasing honor. It wills greater things 
for us. Let us rise to the full duties of our 
enormous task. Our sons are giving their lives 
with a smile. Let us calmly give air that remains 



288 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

of our strength. Let our contribution of endur- 
ance be added with unchanging zeal to the tax of 
blood. 

July 7, 1915. 

Hold Out ! 

Ah, yes! "Hard and long!" Can we fail to 
see that it is the fatal condition of a war that 
raises questions of life and death for the most 
numerous peoples, the peoples best furnished with 
resources, and the most war-like peoples of the 
civilized world? The barbarian invasions, the 
Attilas and the Genghis Khans, left on the pages 
of history such legendary shudders of terror as 
might seem the last measure of what suffering 
humanity could endure. Is it not apparent now 
that the famous advance of civilization, with 
which the men of theory cradled our infancy, 
towards better means of resistance against the 
brutality of nature is accomplished by an ad- 
vance in destruction due to the fact that enlarging 
knowledge has given human beings, themselves 
unchanged, power over forces of which they may 
make, for good or for ill, an ever-increasing em- 
ployment. 

. . . The fatal law of men being that they hate 
each other as much as they love each other, — 
or even a little more, one might believe, since, 
if the formulas of love are multiplying, the 
slaughter of men nevertheless is surpassing all 
measure, — the annals of mankind up to this day 
have hardly been more than a history of blood- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 289 

shed. At school the books which were put into 
my hand spoke of nothing else, and since that 
time I have seen that this was, indeed, the 
principal consideration. Only, as I have come to 
experience some indnlgence for the wretch who 
commits only one mnrder, I cannot help looking 
with some disdain on those timid conquerors of 
ancient epochs who were satisfied with one city 
to raze or one people to carry off into slavery or 
with a few flocks of women and children to put 
to the sword. 

What an ado over little deeds, sometimes 
rather lively, of our divine humanity! We know 
to-day what food our appetite for grandiosity 
may feed upon. The poor Africans, unfitted for 
civilization, never offered us more than slight 
exhibitions of bloodshed. Asia, the mother of 
men, gave us the finest spectacle of slaughter on 
the grand scale. Europe did her best to follow 
the example, making even peace agreeable with 
wretched shows of circus and colisseum. What 
was the aim? To push boundaries across a river 
or beyond a mountain? To exact tribute in bul- 
lion or in human flesh? A paltry ambition com- 
pared with that of a day when a chosen people 
of ' ' Kultur ' ' came forward with the sole doctrine 
of its own profit in the attempt to do what no 
conqueror or group of men had ever dreamed of — 
to appropriate the whole planet for its uses 
through the subjection of all mankind. 

This is a program indeed, and, while waiting 
for the day when, through the progress of 
science, we shall travel freely from planet to 
planet, the modesty of our organizations for 



290 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

slaughter may remain content with it. Germany 
is, in reality, demanding all the lands of other 
peoples. Nothing less will satisfy her zeal for 
the interest of the human species. Her philos- 
ophers, her scientists, her men of industry, all 
of them warriors, modestly acknowledge it. It 
is for our good that they are condemned by the 
law of an ancient God, or Devil, at enmity with 
civilization, to seize upon our persons with the 
purpose of reconstructing us more Germanico. 

Nevertheless, it happens that people who have 
a history of their own do not understand their 
interest as it is understood at Berlin. Our folly 
is to remain ourselves, such as the immemorial 
will of our ancestors has made us. It is for this 
reason that we are in arms, it is for this reason 
that a destiny from which we are inseparable 
decrees that we shall fight until the last. The 
struggle is altogether different from those of 
which the least scrupulous historians have given 
us the chronicle. For never was the stake, as 
now, one of all the continents of the inhabited 
globe with their girdle of oceans. 

The glory of the past is a justification for living 
only if the sons of great ancestors are of a stature 
to equal their fathers. Kheims, and many other 
things, make a splendid chapter in history. The 
Greeks had Phidias, the greatest creator in stone 
who will ever exist, and Pericles, and a prodigious 
inheritance of minds and hearts down to the 
greatest of all — that Demosthenes over whom the 
Macedonian could triumph only because Hellen- 
ism was no longer more than a memory. Sad 
prolongation in the history of punishments down 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 291 

to the Teuto-Scandinavian dynasty and its 
worthy product, Gounaris! 

Of what use is it to say, in this universal agita- 
tion, that one man or another has not been all 
that he should have been, that one leader or 
another has shown himself inferior to his task? 
Under whatever system, especially when people 
have made so much ado as we have about the 
verbal conquests of freedom, the rulers are not 
feeble except when the people themselves begin 
to fail. Let us take thought of these things, let 
us gird our loins for trials and have the courage 
to sound our hearts. If we are firm, victory will 
come, and no intervention of German butchery 
can prevent it. What are the sufferings of a day 
if old men and women and children take their 
stand in silence and strength behind those who 
are offering themselves to die for what is greatest 
in the human soul? A whole people in action — 
it is a fine phrase. But the reality is still finer — 
a supreme honor to those who are capable of 
realizing it. 

Nothing has moved me more profoundly and 
given me more confidence in the blood of the race 
than the letters of a fifteen-year-old boy, the son 
of a teacher, who begs me, without a word of 
sentimentality or of boasting, to have a place 
made for him in the trenches. Inexorable law 
declines his arm and his good- will. "Well, then, 
Monsieur, let them send me to Serbia, or any- 
where you like! I want to fight — I want to 
fight !" And this was all. The men who have 
begotten such children will not know a Cheronsea. 

Patience then, but a patience of force, a patience 



292 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

of resolution which nothing can weaken, neither 
the decimating methods of an enemy who, in any 
case, cannot conquer unless we abandon our- 
selves, nor the shortcomings in organization or 
armament arising from mistakes past or present, 
mistakes which it is our business to redeem by 
sacrifices which will recreate, more beautiful and 
more truly our own, the France of ancient 
grandeur. 

July 9, 1915. 

Patience Still 

Certainly it is easier to recommend patience 
than to put it into practise, for this high virtue 
may at certain times require a rare force of will. 
But we are obligated, if the resolution that we 
have made is firm, to make every effort which 
the hour requires in whatever form and for what- 
ever period of time may be prescribed by the 
issues of which we must be master. As to our 
sacrifices there is no choice: we accept or we 
refuse the requirements of fate. Is France worth 
our giving all of ourselves and all that we hold 
dear? There is no other question. 

I have often heard it said that the soldier's 
sacrifice, at least, was made in one single act. 
This is a profound misunderstanding of soldier's 
work, for it requires a maximum of exertion pro- 
longed until its culmination in the final explosion 
of all the forces one possesses. If less is re- 
quired of those in civil life, it is still true that, 
though age or physical weakness may have 
lessened one's value in action, the surrender of 
personal aims is not the less meritorious, since, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 293 

following the example of the man in the trenches, 
each one in civil life must give all that he pos- 
sesses. 

Only, he must really expend this all in absolute 
unselfishness — something that is very beautiful 
to say, but sometimes very hard to practise. Far 
from the excitement of the battle, without sight 
of the adversary representing the execrable cause 
and rising to confront him, everyone is required 
silently to endure, one after another, the smaller 
and greater sufferings of each hour and each day, 
sufferings which, in sum, will make a sublime 
sacrifice, the grandeur of which will probably 
remain unrecognized — even if those who are in- 
capable of such splendid heroism do not find occa- 
sion to depreciate it. Who would not consent to 
give his all to a cause so superior to himself? 

The most wretched man among us is not with- 
out certain aspirations toward greatness. Those 
only count who are capable of living at least 
some part of their aspiration. To the call of 
events which they had neither foreseen nor pre- 
pared for, heroes have arisen on our soil to 
exhibit a nobility such as France must always 
find present to complete the deeds of nobility in 
our past. And those " civilians " of every age 
and of both sexes who are not normally under 
shell-fire — though they may be under it to-mor- 
row, thanks to the Zeppelins, the perfected aero- 
planes, and the monsters of artillery that shoot 
twenty miles — may still live a higher and nobler 
life. For they will not be called to know the 
glorious inspiration which, if it comes only at 
the very hour when life is vanishing, is felt by 



294 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

tlie majority of men as the sovereign expression 
of public gratitude to one who has generously 
paid his debt to his native land — paid even more, 
often, than he has received. 

Yes, those who shall have suffered without a 
word, without allowing anyone to see their suf- 
fering, those who shall have enjoyed I know not 
what strange pleasure in concealing an honorable 
wound as others might conceal a shameful canker, 
those will not know the glory of a ribbon, or a 
mention in dispatches, or an article in a news- 
paper. Perhaps there will not even remain after 
them the testimonial of a friendly word meant 
to gain for them a slight tribute of homage or 
of common sympathy. 

Little it matters to them, if they know that the 
higher law of things is in the impassive indif- 
ference of the universe, in which neither suns 
nor planets nor atoms can be made to pause, in 
their never-ending courses, by the cries of pain 
or triumph from the meanest insect or the great- 
est genius! They did not choose their lot, but 
they have accepted it, and it may well be that 
this is the highest virtue of our mundane nature. 
They made no demands on others, because they 
found all that was needed in themselves. It 
cannot be that the mass of men will consciously 
be lifted to the fulfilment of this ideal. And 
yet it may well be that every day we are. passing 
haughtily by unknown silent heroes proud of 
their obscurity, whose only shortcoming is to 
refuse us the comfort of examples of virtue above 
the ordinary. 

July 10, 1915, 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 295 



Impossible 

The Frankfort Gazette said the other day that 
Germany was waiting for the superiority of Ger- 
man arms to bring us to the point of suing for 
peace. With all the respect due to such eminent 
psychologists, I take the liberty of stating that 
there does not exist enough heavy artillery and 
asphyxiating bombs to bring about that result. 

Our friends the Boches, who must inevitably 
judge us only by themselves, finding themselves 
such creatures as submit without a pang to any 
operation upon what they call their national 
character, were capable of believing that we 
should magically turn Teuton in spirit after their 
prospective victory, just as they themselves 
would change, in no matter what way, if only 
the heel of the conqueror were heavy enough upon 
their faces. And this is exactly what cannot be, 
whatever happens. For want of a psychology 
sufficiently objective, their Frankfort Gazette 
expects of us precisely the thing which it is 
impossible for us to grant them — our own col- 
laboration for the ultimate dishonor of the French 
name. 

They wish from us more than it is in our power 
to give. There ought to be, in Sancho's bag, a 
proverb saying, "Whoever opens his mouth too 
wide will see it closed.' ' It is exactly what is 
happening to them. When we lost Alsace-Lor- 
raine, though our hearts were bleeding, France, 
as someone said so well, still remained. France! 
That is to say, all the power of her past, all the 



296 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

power of her hopes, from which we could expect 
a continuation, ever splendid, of the glory of our 
ancestors, manifested in a revival of our great- 
ness. 

We were not dead, and we saw before us the 
opportunity to regain — for the happy fulfilment 
to which our history called us — the high tradi- 
tions of French thought. It is another matter 
to-day, for nothing more can now be demanded 
of us without requiring the repudiation of all our 
racial existence in the disavowal of our very 
selves. Macbeth killed only sleep. What is such 
a punishment in comparison with one that would 
leave us alive after killing all hope in us, after 
drying up the springs of every aspiration of our 
lives 1 This time we could no longer conceive the 
idea of renewing our life, since we should have 
ourselves proclaimed to all the world that France 
had no longer a justification for existence. 

Bismarck, Treitschke, Bernhardi, and their 
assistants among the "intellectuals," came to ex- 
plain to us scientifically their theory of the 
Teutonization of the universe, and the Kaiser, 
aided by his two million socialists, appears on the 
French and Belgian fields of battle to put the 
theory into action. Into action against whom! 
Not only against the French people, as in 1870, 
when Austria, just swallowed, had given Germany 
a taste for bloody feasts. No! Against all that 
remains, this time, neutral or combatant, of in- 
dependent Europe. Even if we were destined to 
annihilation, there wculd remain to us the honor 
of having been the fii^st to confront the enemy. 

It was because we had recognized instinctively 



FRANCE PACING GERMANY 297 

(not soon enough, unfortunately, to prepare our- 
selves for it as we should have) the enormous size 
of the stake that the German Emperor, in the name 
of his people, was going to throw upon the board — 
upon the plains of France, covered with lakes of 
blood. And as we foresaw, the great imperial 
game is now in progress. We won at the Marne. 
Our power to win is not yet exhausted. It can- 
not be exhausted, because the French soldier — 
who remained until the fatal moment silently at 
his machine or his plow — has understood that 
a supreme honor has magnificently fallen to 
him: that of representing in this unprecedented 
struggle, besides his own cause, glorious enough, 
the cause of mankind itself. In older days he had 
been told that he was the "Soldier of God." He 
feels that he is the soldier of man, in this hour, 
and does not think his title less noble. We may 
therefore wonder at the power he can derive from 
the two strongest motives of the human race : the 
concrete feeling that he is defending his home, 
his country, his beliefs, his language, his history — 
all the glory of France which would sink into ob- 
livion if he were capable of defection ; and the en- 
thusiasm descending with increasing power from 
his fathers, of an idealism which makes him the 
champion of mankind. 

The German has taken it as his mission to rule ; 
our mission is to set free. To disappear from the 
world or to save it, with the help of our great 
Allies (among whom I forget neither Belgium nor 
Serbia), such is the prodigious alternative which 
fortune submits to our choice. That is what 
brings together in French fraternity, at last re- 



298 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

discovered, all our social classes which but yes- 
terday believed they hated one another because 
so many disastrous differences of ideal had sepa- 
rated them. That is what carries our youths to 
the trenches, our youths who were looking for 
their way amid our sorry quarrels and who, 
thanks to Germany, have suddenly found it. That 
is why all the peoples are awakening, as in the 
great days of the past, to the voice of the terrible 
warrior-woman whom Rude has launched scream- 
ing over Paris, that the peoples may hear her in 
every place. We and our companions in arms 
know where she leads. She leads us to efforts 
for liberty, for justice, for the right, for glory, 
which, if they remain but efforts, will still leave 
a noble indication of our passage. 

. . . Behold the field that you have made, that 
you have willed, prophets of Germany! Like 
the soldiers of Cambyses swallowed up in the sand, 
you may rush forward with all your engines of 
death to be buried in the end under the mountains 
of corpses that you have built up. You cannot 
win because you are endeavoring to turn back the 
course of the history of man, which advances from 
the rule of force to progressive liberations. 

You cannot win because behind our armies as 
you see them in the line there are forces of his- 
toric destiny, of reasoned resolution, and of in- 
defectible conscience, which impel us, weak or 
brave, to the supreme virtues of a heroism ever 
growing, which the ever growing excess of your 
savagery will but strengthen. 

You cannot win because the force of a day can- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 299 

not last more than a day when it seeks to fortify 
itself by the violation of the right. 

You cannot win because your force is one of 
servitude organized to infect human societies with 
your corruption of culture. 

However powerful it may be, what is the most 
marvelous machine worth, if the man is not at the 
lever? The handle of the lever is not for your 
servile grasp ; an education in manhood is needed 
for it. 

You cannot win because all your wise organiza- 
tions of servitude make out of you only automa- 
tons, which may imitate the motions of a free life, 
but which know not freedom. The nations are 
coming to an equilibrium in liberty ; and what the 
despots of genius could not do, will not be for 
Wilhelm II to realize. 

No. You will not win, you cannot win, because 
we are resolved — under pain of seeing ourselves 
insulted by our past, by our fathers and our chil- 
dren — to follow one another to the front until the 
last man is exhausted, to take more and more of 
your base lives while generously giving of our 
own all that the nobility of our blood shall de- 
mand. You will not win because you can never 
bring it to pass that everyone who is worthy of 
the name of man on the inhabited earth shall not 
be alarmed if we are forced to yield, and because, 
in case of reverses that we deem impossible, you 
would see rising before you, by the side of Great 
Britain and Eussia — themselves inexhaustible in 
men and money — allies whom we feel to be already 
trembling, and who, if the greatness of the danger 
suddenly appeared, would throw irresistible rein- 



300 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

f orcements against your last soldiers overcome by 
exhaustion. Victory cannot be yours, I say. 
There may be some among you who can still be- 
lieve in it, because, like educated Titans, you have 
built new machines for piling Pelion upon Ossa. 
Don't you know that the giant divinities did not 
succeed in scaling Olympus in this way? We are 
too high, and you are too low. 

And you expect, madly trusting in your mon- 
strous shells and your clouds of gas, that they will 
bring us to dishonorable suicide? You have not 
observed us well. On our side, Boches, we know 
you ; as for you, you will come to know us. 

July 11, 1915. 



Against the Theme of Passivity 

... I was quite aware that this people had 
accomplished great things. But our romantic 
nature had made such a stir over them that I won- 
dered sometimes at what exact point reality and 
imagination had met. Nevertheless the incredible 
fortune has been reserved for us to see our sons 
greater, greater in ultimate devotion with ultimate 
simplicity, than they could have been imagined by 
their inspired fathers, carried away by hatred of 
tyranny even to the point of accepting Napoleon, 
as the ancients of the Roman republic accepted 
Csesar. 

The soldiers of the year II were astonishing 
products of French nature. Our silent sons whom, 
even yesterday, I could not look at without having 
words of pity rising sometimes to my lips, have 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 301 

reached and passed them at one bound. The great 
artist Meheut, coming from his trench on a fur- 
lough of four days, gave me a brief glimpse of 
some tragic sketches the sight of which will cause 
a shudder from these great hours to pass through 
the souls of our descendants. All display is absent. 
There is no place for pose in this mass of unas- 
suming men that spring fantastically from the 
ground in a furious offensive before which no 
enemy could hold. Not a family that has not its 
page of heroism. Not a mother, not a widow, not 
a child, who does not wear the mourning like a 
flag. It seems as if our wounded men ask pardon 
for an incomplete sacrifice. Shirkers have been 
seen to blush and demand to be sent to the front 
in order to spare themselves the kick which is 
going to impel them thither soon. 

The whole people of France is in arms, proud 
to have thrown off the heavy weight of the com- 
mon things of life for the magnificent enthusiasms 
of disinterested ardor. The cause ennobles them 
and, indeed, by the beauty of total sacrifice they 
ennoble the cause in turn. Men of sovereign will 
with their strong arms are holding back the scien- 
tific might of German machinery. On the great 
American prairie, in the days of the first railroad, 
innocent Eed-skins tried to stop the course of the 
locomotives with their bodies. To-day they might 
see white men turning back the German engine of 
death which was to crush upon its passage, like 
the car of the bloody Hindu cult, a whole mass of 
humanity. 

August 1, 1915. 



302 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Time to Beeathe 

"Time to breathe," says the Times. Bussia, it 
remarks, has given us the "time to breathe." I 
am unable to determine how much truth there is 
in the metaphor, for one would have to know 
exactly how far we have advanced in the manufac- 
ture of arms and munitions in France and Great 
Britain — and more especially one would have to be 
qualified to judge the military operations. 

Our Frenchmen had no need to take breath, any 
more than did our Allies. After a year of the 
most severe tests, I am bold to say that their mo- 
rale was never better. The enthusiasm of the first 
days has been transformed, among us, into a quiet 
resolution to see the business through at any 
price, and that resolution goes hand in hand with 
a certain gaiety of spirit that is Gallic. The 
British are more grave, though they, also, are not 
without a bit of banter on their lips. But the same 
feeling unfailingly animates all men— namely, 
that an hour has come which demands of them the 
full exertion of which they are capable, rather 
than to yield. Doubtless they have neither the 
time nor the means for determining precisely the 
full reasons for this state of things, but they are 
abundantly certain that defeat would mean the 
end of a history in which they take pride, while 
victory would mark for them, in the fortress of 
their rights, and for all civilized peoples pursuing 
a free and peaceful development, a nobler renewal 
of glory. 

And what of the other side? There we see 
oligarchic tyranny cooperating with popular ser- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 303 

vitude for the purpose of mastery which must im- 
pose on all the nations the yoke by means of which 
the German feels that he gets revenge for his base- 
ness by crushing peoples who are superior to him 
but less powerfully organized. The only question 
remaining is as to which of the two forces is capa- 
ble of offering the longest continued effort. 

If we look at the matter closely enough, there 
is no need of a great effort of mind to understand 
that in all this we have a continuation of the series 
of wars of the French Revolution, in which, as 
now, France and Germany faced each other in 
epic combats for and against freedom. The de- 
centralized character of the political and social 
institutions of Great Britain did not permit a 
world-wide influence for her doctrines, and the 
proclamation of rights which accompanied the 
American Declaration of Independence aroused 
peoples at that time too far distant for Europe 
to be unsettled by them. The ideal doctrines of 
the French Revolution were the more inspiring 
to minds still incompletely awakened because of 
the fact that even the protagonists of the great 
battle did not have the time to lose themselves in 
disquieting dreams about the distance that sepa- 
rates phrases from living reality. All this ap- 
peared to be engulfed by the Napoleonic catas- 
trophe, which was an unsuccessful counter-attack 
against personal liberty — an attack that Bismarck 
anew was powerless to bring to success. 

A power for freedom — but for a freedom in 
which mere abstract theory had no part — Great 
Britain, already extending her influence through- 
out the world, turned against the nation that had 



304 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

sowed over all the continents the seeds of inde- 
pendence. Victorious, with Germany, at Water- 
loo, she was already only a spectator at Sedan, and 
my eminent friend, Admiral Max, at that time 
vainly upheld, with a tireless courage, the cause 
of France among his fellow-citizens. After half 
a century, we see how great still was the strength 
of the resistance, on the other side of the channel, 
against the abandonment of the haughty theory of 
' ' splendid isolation. ' ' 

Ah, no! There is no longer a people isolated. 
The machinery which has multiplied rapid com- 
munications on every side, has so securely bound 
us with that easy girdle with which the Puck of 
Shakespeare encircled the globe in the turn of 
a hand, that we can no longer slip out of it — bound 
us so securely that, in spite of themselves, the 
mutual responsibility of men is established equally 
in the sphere of rights and in that of interests. 
Is this not an evident and inescapable fact, when 
destiny is pronouncing that it is Eussia who shall 
liberate Poland, and when the Czar, whose father 
had already risen to listen to the Marseillaise, is 
favorably receiving the Duma when it pleads for 
freedom, while below the equator the Eepublic of 
Uruguay is choosing July 14 as the date of its 
national holiday? 

... Is it not apparent, in a word, that all 
humanity is drawing together? And since it can 
only be united by a principle of law and justice— 
that is to say, a human approximation of justice — 
we enjoy the good fortune of being workers in the 
greatest task that men have ever known. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 305 

Doubtless our soldiers do not trouble themselves 
with analysis like this, but, not less clearly than 
their fathers of the year II, they have the convic- 
tion that they are the bearers of a treasure of doc- 
trines and purposes, and, not less valiantly than 
their forebears, they have resolved to see that 
through their efforts the peoples shall be defini- 
tively enriched out of that treasure. They pre- 
serve a full consciousness that they are the cham- 
pions of the greatest cause that was ever fought 
out by our people, and, their pride of race and love 
of home not permitting them to weaken, they are 
required to be the first among men or the last. 

I am trying to say all this as simply as is pos- 
sible for me. But why assume a deceitful humility 
at an hour of supreme crisis when the nobility of 
our cause, even in the defection of certain leaders, 
must be our firmest support? 

Therefore when there is talk of "time to 
breathe," the question cannot be of a recovery of 
moral force, since at no moment has our energy 
been of greater vigor. Vires acquirit eundo. Con- 
trary to what has been the case up to the present, 
never have the French people been less inclined 
to external manifestations, never has one seen 
them more deeply resolved. 

August 10, 1915i 

The Only Question 

. . . It is not only the land of France — moun- 
tains, valleys, and plains — that must be saved 
from the unclean Boche reeking with contamina- 
tion. It is the fruits of this generous soil, which 



306 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

has given birth to so many noble men of thought 
and men of action in all the fields in which the 
highest aspirations call for the most nnselfish 
exertions. Our dead, our great dead, that illus- 
trious dust that gave us life — it is for them, for 
those of the past as for those of the future, that 
our sons are in battle. 

On account of theories and phrases which we 
did not always understand very clearly, we had 
separated from one another, hated one another, 
killed one another. Even in these implacable dis- 
agreements there was rivalry for the construction 
of a higher France. In this ambition, daring, 
doubtless, but noble indeed, is it not time to unite 
ourselves anew, no longer under the weak hand 
of a pretended master of chance but in the ful- 
ness and the honor of our free will? When our 
panting country calls to us, accursed be he who 
can hesitate ! And when our land demands every 
effort of every Frenchman and Frenchwoman, 
accursed, thrice accursed, be that one who can 
limit the full gift of his powers of thought and 
action in behalf of the noble soil of which we do 
not agree to be degenerate children! 

This is the question, the only question; there 
can be no other, or rather, if there are others, we 
do not want to know them. For France we will 
give all of our efforts, of our wealth, and of our 
lives that may be required, and above those who 
have fallen or who are still to fall upon the battle- 
field of glory, we take our oath that, whatever 
comes, we shall never surrender to the enemy. We 
shall make every sacrifice of blood and treasure 
to save the sacred earth where sleep those men of 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 307 

France whom our sons will bring to life again. 
For if the declaration of war, by some miracle, 
mobilized a whole people of heroes, we may await, 
in our victorious peace, a mobilization no less 
splendid of the French genius. 

. . . We have but one idea now. All those sol- 
diers, whom it is easy to celebrate but whom it is 
much more necessary to aid, will some day come 
back to us in glory, after new trials without num- 
ber. That will be the noblest day of our history. 
It is for us to make it so, by meriting it. Our sons, 
then, in the pride of their sacrifice, in the noble- 
ness of sublime duty done, in the overthrow of 
boundless hope, though they may yet be quivering 
from pitiful sufferings, will look us in the face. 
Which of us would want to be forced to lower his 
eyes? Which of us could listen to the terrible 
words, "Why did you not do more?" 

August 25, 1915. 



VII 

A VISIT TO THE TRENCHES 
THE CHAMPAGNE OFFENSIVE 

The Smile of the Teenches 

I have just been to see our soldiers at the front. 
As luck would have it, my trip coincided with the 
great and fortunate offensive which is still in 
progress, and therefore I was able to observe all 
the branches of the service in full action. I did 
not by any means go there to seek materials for 
literature. Judgments founded on fact, in so far 
as a necessarily brief visit gives opportunity for 
them — that is what I went to seek. I am there- 
fore very happy to say that everything that I saw 
afforded me ample satisfaction. Opportunities for 
which I was more than grateful allowed me to go 
about everywhere, to observe the operation of all 
parts of the service, to talk with everybody, in 
the rear and at the front, and to obtain, in general 
and in detail, something that was more than a 
mere series of impressions. 

... I was not an investigator obliged to make 
a detailed inquiry into things in order to be able 
to render a verdict on the fashion in which each 
man is fulfilling his duty. I did not have to make 
a scrutinizing examination. I had received no mis- 
sion of that kind, but, following the work of the 

308 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 309 

senatorial commission on the army, I believe I was 
able to cast a sharp enongh eye npon our present 
forces at the very moment when they were com- 
bined for the greatest task that war assigns them 
— an offensive campaign. 

... Of his enormous task, the soldier in the 
trench, under falling shells, sees only that part 
that is directly in front of him. He knows that he 
has dislodged the Boche from this bit of woods, 
from this ravine, from that plain or that hill. He 
knows that such and such a plateau must be taken 
to-morrow. He placidly looks at his comrades 
still lying stiff on the ground for which they have 
given their lives, as he prepares, in an unspeakable 
scorn of the enemy, for the attack against the next 
obstacles. 

"Monsieur, have you any news from Boubaix?" 
says one. 

"Shall we soon get Lille! " asks another. 

"Do you know how far we have advanced V 9 

"Ah! if to-morrow we could. . . " 

And each one begins to explain his plan of 
strategy. 

"And back there, they are satisfied with us, eh? 
It was pretty hard, but we didn 't do so badly. ' 9 

"And the Eoumanians and Greeks? What about 
them?" 

And for each one of these people comes an ap- 
propriate epithet, with a bantering pucker of the 
lips to signify that they can get along without 
help. 

There is only one question that you will not 
hear : 



310 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 



>> 



"Is this going to last long? 

The rain is falling. Our feet are sticking in the 
mud, and, under his blue helmet, exactly like the 
casque of Mambrino, a little knight, of the color 
of the ground, who has over the knight of the sad 
countenance the advantage of not knowing his 
grandeur, while incessantly guessing at the direc- 
tion of the shells that are passing, is demanding 
to know about everything from his unhoped-for 
visitor. How could the visitor deceive him? It 
would be shameful to do so. He wants to know 
because he needs to know in order to be at peace 
with himself. But he is beyond the need of en- 
couragement, given up as he is to unbending reso- 
lution, silent but inexorable. Ill-clad, ill-kempt, 
dirty, sparing of words — for there is no one less 
talkative — he speaks in a low voice amid the stri- 
dent clangor of earth and air, and all you notice 
about him is a very happy smile which tells of 
his quiet exaltation in being what he is and where 
he is, in behalf of a great cause to the height of 
which he rose at the first bound. Friendly reader, 
I bring you the smile of the trenches of Cham- 
pagne, which is also that of Artois and of the 
Argonne; it is something more than a smile of 
confidence, it is a smile of certainty. 

Since everything comes down to the question of 
the soldier, as I said a moment ago, it is this little 
soldier that I should like briefly to show you in 
the course of my trip. I shall try to let him pass 
rapidly before your eyes in his daily life, of mili- 
tary action. You will excuse me if I have not been 
able to keep from anticipating my conclusion at 
the beginning — namely, by faith in the well-con- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 311 

trolled smile of the trenches, which surpasses hope 
because it is the serene and undoubting affirmation 
of an immovable will. 

October 1, 1915. 

In Memoeiam 

Since all questions of preparedness, of organi- 
zation, and of actual engagement in battle come 
down to the question of the soldier, it is on the 
soldier that the duty falls of the supreme exertion 
in which is epitomized, with his own valor, that 
of the entire nation. My mind was intent upon 
the latent character of man, who still retains so 
many traces of former defects, and who can only 
counteract these shortcomings by an excess of 
valor; it was in this mood that I approached the 
mystery of this simple and traditionally obstinate 
soul of the French soldier, who has written with 
his blood, on our Gallic soil, so many glorious 
pages of history. 

Is our race at the end of its effort? It is the 
cruel question which all the events of our public 
life for half a century have put before us daily, 
when, driven back to the foot of the Vosges, we 
saw the ancient power of the Germans rising and 
threatening the world, ready to overthrow again 
the Greco-Roman civilization in order to seize 
upon the destinies of peoples and to mold them, 
according to its iron plan, to the primitive pur- 
poses of violence organized against all the aspi- 
rations for individual liberty which are the honor 
of mankind. 

Under the weight of this dreadful nightmare, 



312 FBANCE FACING GERMANY 

repelling the vision in so many troubled hours, 
I used to invoke the support of that Frenchman, 
unknown to fame, who, from generation to gener- 
ation, has paid in unutterable sufferings and in 
lavish streams of generous blood for passing 
faults, which he redeemed so nobly that he re- 
mained the hope of every victim of force exerted 
against the right to live in justice. 

I traversed the battle-field of the Marne; and 
there I found him, this anonymous hero, who asks 
for none of our empty-sounding, conventional 
eulogies, being content in the green mound beneath 
which he has gone to sleep in the vision of a glori- 
ous exertion which even death could not weaken. 
This soil which has taken him back was his pity- 
ing step-mother, tender and rough at once. Per- 
haps he cherished her no less for her rigors than 
for her sweet charity in his last hour. 

From the sea to the mountains he enveloped 
her in an immense robe of inexpressible love on 
which were founded all the enterprises of a soil 
generous and miserly by turns, all the lively hopes 
of home, all the aspirations of that infinite heaven 
which, even though deceptive, had none the less 
guided his soul in its march toward the star which 
it may be more beautiful to travel toward than to 
attain. From the misty horizons of the ocean, 
from the limpid blue of the Mediterranean, mother 
of high civilizations, from the rugged summits of 
the Pyrenees and the Alps, from the smiling val- 
leys of his beautiful rivers, lavishing their gener- 
ous harvests, he came here to fall with his face 
toward the invader. An irresistible power brought 
him to this place, to which the fierce resolution of 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 313 

those who loved him agreed that he should come, 
to prove, even in death, the honor of a sacrifice 
superior to love. If the earth could speak she 
would tell us of all those great deeds in history 
from which she is still quivering, and which we 
coldly embalm in lifeless pages. Fate wills it that 
she should conceal her processes from us within 
the bottomless gulfs of her infinite teeming. She 
is silent, but the little we know of what has been 
is enough to lift us above ourselves and to make 
for us a life higher than our own by attaching us 
to the great chain, of iron and gold together, in 
which we are like a link, fragile yet durable, be- 
tween the things that were and the things which, 
through us, are to be. 

These eloquent graves are of yesterday. The 
soul took flight in the twinkling of an eye. But 
by the roadside, in the hollow of the valley, on 
the slope of the wooded hill, the body, slower to 
vanish, has remained in the place where it fell to 
express the inflexible will of the country under 
supreme danger, and to cry to the passer-by that 
the noblest impulse of a life was arrested there. 
We do pious homage — homage of all to a single 
one who knew how to embody, in a crucial moment, 
the highest moral energies of a people worthy to 
live, in the conviction that they who must carry on 
the task will do so. And we pass on, going from 
those who have given their lives, without a word 
or gesture that was spectacular, to those who havo 
been for a year in the battle. We wish to derive 
new strength from the sight of the fighters whose 
own strength will never be exhausted, and since 
our living soldiers are no less glorious than our 



314 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

dead, it is needful that France, at least, to re- 
main sure of herself, hear it proclaimed. 

She is there, all the great mother-land. See her 
quivering in the seeming passivity of those old 
men and women and children, tragically serene, 
content to live in the ruins of the villages where 
barbarism has passed. A crumbled church, pieces 
of walls, shafts of blackened stone, and all else 
is twisted iron and piles of rubbish in which, under 
certain props, vague niches have sometimes been 
hollowed out. 

Here is a town or a village where yesterday 
the modest and happy toilers were pursuing their 
peaceful course, when the base enemy, beaten, 
conceived the dishonorable thought of taking 
vengeance for his defeat on populations that were 
defenseless, by wholesale slaughter, by fire, and 
by a visitation of ferocities to the details of which 
the tongue refuses to lend itself. 

Not far from here are camps of refugees bid- 
ing their time for the next renewal of the life 
of France. And in good testimony of the im- 
passive resolution whose roots cling irremovably 
to the scattered stones, children are playing amid 
the ruins; women are knitting seated on a flag- 
stone before the threshold of what was their 
home; with a graceful, swinging step, young girls, 
who have not renounced the ways of innocent 
coquetry, are going to the fountain or taking care 
of I know not what households in the little 
wooden cabins among which we find inscriptions 
like town-hall, bakery, grocery, and displays of 
goods that my hat would hold. On the public 
square, as yet but vaguely apparent, of this 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 315 

charming little town, which was Sermaize, a 
fountain continues to tinkle in its metal basin, 
just as if nothing had happened. 

Likewise, on the visages of the wandering forms 
no emotion from the past is written. Outhouses 
of wood make a habitation behind which faces are 
smiling, and if some house, one knows not how, 
has remained standing, the windows, often 
adorned with flowers, are opened in good evidence 
that life still goes on. And here are old men, 
heavy of step, accompanied by women with de- 
termined mien, taking their way toward the field 
or garden, whither they are called by the re- 
mainder of the crops among the graves, the sole 
monuments where the thought of those who still 
live can still be revived. This simple and serene 
courage of those whom the tempest has spared 
seemed to me more affecting than were perhaps 
the dreadful convulsions of the first despair, the 
memory of which seems so far away that the 
heaps of stone are needed to proclaim what the 
impassive pride of their eyes will not say, until 
the right has been revenged. 

Life must be begun again, and they are be- 
ginning it. The present and the future are cut 
off from the past — the past of misfortune, not the 
past of history, on which the soul founds an un- 
changing pride. Yes! There is a past which 
remains present, and it is at the tombs of the 
great dead that the silent meditation of the living 
has made it perpetual. They are there, the august 
protectors of a land already sanctified by the 
sacrifices of ancestors which their heroism is 
continuing and of which they must, above all, 



316 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

bequeath the example to the young minds who, 
to-morrow, will receive the burden of the future. 

And thus care is multiplied in a rivalry of 
ardor around the turfy mounds whither each one 
wants to bring the homage of a rustic decoration, 
the grace of a flower, often the tribute of a flag. 
There is no trench, however small, that does not 
have its decoration, its white crosses with in- 
scriptions affecting in simplicity. Altars of the 
religion of the sacred mother-land, the dead and 
the living commune before them. Borders of box- 
wood are set in line, and all the rustic decoration, 
in which lies concealed, here and there, a rusted 
weapon or a noble piece of ruin, testifies to such 
unceasing care that one has the sensation that 
the dead and the living have not been sundered. 
And this is but the literal truth. All these people 
are continuing, in the intimate relation between 
those who have lived and those who wish to pre- 
serve for their children the right to live, the 
nobility of a face worthy of all glory. 

And that the picture may be complete, white 
shafts decorated with the crescent express our 
thanks to our Mohammedan friends. Finally, not 
far away, the black and white escutcheon, with 
suitable inscription, stands over the enemy fallen 
at the end of his savagery. 

Peace to these dead! Peace, but not oblivion. 
For there is under these verdurous mounds a 
living history to be preserved and devotedly en- 
larged, and the cult of those who survive pro- 
claims that there remains, for the work of the 
centuries, a France of unshakable resolution. 
This is the sermon of our dead, ranged along the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 317 

side of the road which led me to the encounters 
of war where were awaiting me, in the fire of 
action, the companions in arms of the good sol- 
diers whose task is finished. It is the sermon of 
the silent French people, of both sexes and all 
ages, who come daily to bring something of them- 
selves to the modest monument of earth by which 
is attested, beyond death, the continuity of an 
incomparable grandeur. 

October 2, 1915. 

At a Halting-Place 

. . . Providence was kind enough to put on my 
road, one morning, a certain battalion in which 
there was a young sergeant who occupies a warm 
place in my friendship. Just as it will happen 
in life I had passed by him in my haste, without 
any possible notion that we had been so near to 
meeting. 

The men, stretched voluptuously on stone heaps 
or in the mud, offered a fine sight of soldierly 
nonchalance. The officers were talking together. 
The conversation among the troops was probably 
of a nice twenty-mile ribbon of a road offering 
itself to their legs refreshed from the wet grass. 
I kept my eyes on the impassive young troopers, 
or on the disposition of the impedimenta, without 
pausing to look at faces — and this only to learn, 
some hours later, that if I desired to find my 
sergeant I had only to retrace my course. 

I soon turned back, and, fortune being decidedly 
favorable to me, I found the men again at halt. 
This time we were not long in recognizing each 



318 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

other. With a leap of joy the little fellow, with 
a chevron on his arm, rushed forward to receive 
us. And then: 

"I may catch the deuce for this," he said. "I 
left my company and that's not allowed, even at 
rest. I forgot." 

A few feet away, the smiling officer was giving 
a sufficient sign, with his amused glance, that at 
the proper time he could make concessions to 
human nature. And so we stood talking of the 
distance they had come and of the distance that 
was left to cover. They knew about where they 
were going and their great preoccupation was to 
relate their own movement to the general military 
operation. They insisted absolutely on my telling 
them things that I did not know. The day before, 
from Mount Yvron, a northern spur of the plateau 
of Valmy, I had had before my eyes the spectacle 
of the artillery in action on both sides. At the 
next village of Courtemont, riddled with shells, 
I learned on the morrow that I should have had 
the surprise of an agreeable encounter. I had 
stayed on the height in order to be able to see, 
thanks to which fact, precisely, I did not see 
what I desired. 

My sergeant required me to tell him what I 
had seen, to deliver judgments like a master of 
strategy, and above all to prophesy things to 
come as we want them to come. I did not make 
him ask twice before I predicted a victory. 
Through all the conversation I kept my eyes on 
the men before me. They were taking their ease 
on some soft bed of loam, on the terrace at the 
roadside, or in the nice fresh grass, with the ex- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 319 

ception of the delicate ones, who were gravely 
seated on some big sharp rock. They were chat- 
ting in little groups, each one ready to reach 
his place in the ranks at one bound. 

This reserve, this discreet attitude of men far 
away from actual combat, at a halting-place 
where their energies might have been relaxed, 
vividly impressed one's mind with the unity of 
power which, even in repose, remained under the 
commanding suggestion of the full effort ex- 
pected. I shall come back to this aspect of our 
soldier on his campaigns, for the same impression 
will follow us from the high- way to the plain and 
in the trenches. The officers and men do not take 
their eyes off each other, though they are not 
without an amusing affectation of indifference. 
The moderate relaxation of a half hour is only 
a means for renewing strength for action, the 
constant object of all thought. 

By imperceptible signs it was understood that 
the command to march was coming. The order 
and the obedience to it were simultaneous, and 
we stood looking on while this good little troop 
of warm-hearted, beardless poilus filed away, 
these poilus who had already made havoc in the 
enemy trenches and who were eager for nothing 
but the relief of their native land from the un- 
speakable Boche. They were not far from their 
thirtieth kilometer and I will not conceal the fact 
that some of them were dragging their feet. I 
even saw three of them limping. To do them 
justice it must be said, however, that the ones 
who limped did not cover any less ground than 
the others. 



320 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

We had gone in front of the battalion to the 
halting-place, where already the cantonment was 
being arranged. Non-commissioned officers were 
chalking on the doors numbers which would bring 
order out of confusion when the time came. 

And now, indeed, the troop was announced at 
the entrance to the village. There was a brief 
rest, in order to put themselves in condition to 
make an entrance worthy of French soldiers. 
The night was coming, but the two or three dozen 
people who composed the population of the village 
must not be allowed to think that the th bat- 
talion of the th regiment was not capable 

of giving a lesson to any other troop. Sacks were 
adjusted, backs were straightened, arms were 
pressed against ribs, guns were fixed firmly on 
shoulders, feet beat rhythmically in fine military 
fashion, and, with drum and bugle blowing, the 
splendid troop of war, in which my heart had 
already enlisted, made its entrance under the 
happy gaze of children and housewives. I saw 
my limpers again, but the rascals were no longer 
limping. I wanted to embrace them. We saluted 
with full hearts, we wanted to cry out, for it was 
France that was moving by — all of France, her 
glorious past that made this present itself, not 
unworthy in turn to give birth to her future: 
all the mother-land, in a sublime procession of 
hopes. ... 

Immobile, silent, clad all in black on his high 
charger, the commander watched his men pass 
before him. A signal, and without even the sound 
of a command reaching our ears, without a wrong 
movement, or an exclamation, among the slow- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 321 

moving trucks and the strings of horses being 
led to water, onr poilus, like water gliding 
through channels in the sand, spread out through 
the open spaces of an ordered crowd, and nowhere 
was discovered anything forgotten or unpro- 
vided. There was no confusion, no raising of 
voices. In passing each other, they were ex- 
changing remarks about their lodgings; some of 
them were already promenading arm in arm, 
while so-called shops were filling with visitors. 
There was quiet gaiety, and the firm resolution 
to make a good night of it on the straw once they 
had satisfied the appetite of men of twenty. 

Among the first, our sergeant had rejoined us, 
his face illumined. 

"We are pursuit troops. We are going to have 
a good time. Everybody's happy." 

And immediately there began the story of a 
colonel or a major or a captain such as never was, 
whom our jolly warriors had for leader. They 
loved them, they were proud of them. The stories 
were never exhausted, and I saw clearly that the 
captain especially had a certain way of quietly 
leading his men into fire, cigarette between his 
lips, a way which was bound to make them want 
to follow him everywhere. At the risk of dis- 
turbing him, I ventured to offer my congratula- 
tions on the fine bearing of his men, but he turned 
the tables, in a few brief words (as if he wanted 
to pay back the compliment which, unknown to 
him, had been given him a moment before), by 
extolling his men to me, with his eyes sparkling 
in pride. 

"It is they who do it all. We do our best to 



322 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

second them. What they are capable of, I do not 
even know myself. They are always good, always 
ready, always contented. It is the finest thing 
that has ever been seen. I couldn't tell yon how 
happy I am to command them." 

In certain confused phrases I tried, without 
wounding his modesty, to tell him how fully his 
feelings of affectionate admiration were returned. 
I remarked that the day before a general had told 
me that if our boys had thus been changed into 
figures of gay heroism such as history had doubt- 
less never seen before they were quick to admit 
that a great part of the credit for this magnificent 
transformation belonged to the officers of the line. 
The face of my interlocutor lighted up: 

"Well, since you have said it, I am glad that 
justice is done us. We have done the best that 
is in us. As for me, I have thought of nothing 
else. But, what fellows! Where would you find 
young men of such good- will, such complete for- 
getfulness of themselves, so ardent in their desire 
to do their duty to perfection, so ingenious in a 
zeal that nothing tires, so generous in eager 
friendship, so quiet and so strong?" 

What could I answer? The words stuck in my 
throat. I pressed a noble hand, and we separated. 

Each one to his destiny. 

October 3, 1915. 

We're Not Through Yet 

The quiet march to the halting-place is only 
the prelude to the lively spectacle which will be 
offered to us by the road which leads to the front 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 323 

— that is to say, to the actual battle, the living 
drama. 

As far as Suippes the wagons are moving, at 
a rate that seems slow in comparison with our 
speed, but which neither hastens nor pauses at 
any time. Men are perched on the tops, and 
others are following, pipes in their mouths. Tied 
to one another, horses with their riders move 
along, as if pushed by some irresistible thing to- 
ward an inexorable destiny. There are strings 
of mules that go on tirelessly. There are tractors 
of every form and of every capacity for carrying 
supplies of every nature — cases of munitions, 
surgical materials, forage, and things without 
name in bales without shape, in which system is 
nevertheless evident. 

Little detachments led by non-commissioned 
officers circulate with ease in this incongruous 
crowd, which is ruled by common agreement on 
the common necessity of reaching the destination 
at the hour fixed. Over all this multitude silence 
reigns. The universal trait of these men is that 
they do not talk. No oaths from drivers, no ex- 
clamations, no recriminations over some unfore- 
seen collision. They incline to one side to let 
us pass, at the continuous call of a trumpet which 
itself is blown discreetly. There is no inter- 
rogatory staring. An accidental glance some- 
times brings the automatic gesture of a military 
salute. All thoughts are bent on another object. 
Each man is intent on the order that was given 
him, his approach to the completion of which 
makes its particular importance stand out in re- 
lief. Whatever happens, in this hour in which 



324 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

each individual is responsible, the order must be 
fulfilled. Not an instant is lost in words or acts 
that do not lead directly toward the goal. In 
small things and great ones, both aiding toward 
the same end, there is not a man who is not under 
the spell of a single intention — namely, in the 
conditions given, to execute a prescribed task in 
the time accorded. That is the reason for the 
impressive unanimity of silent attentiveness, in 
a moving crowd that is carried along, as it were, 
like a flowing river, by natural necessities which 
nothing can arrest. 

The picturesque appearance of certain groups 
in which are revealed unexpected sights in uni- 
forms which the mud of the road and varied 
accidents have diversified, may strike the eye of 
the civilian, but could not hold the glance of those 
unastonishable coryphaei of the great tragedy to- 
ward which they all are hurrying, for the support 
of the protagonists in the action. Far away, lines 
of horses show in profile against the horizon, like 
transparencies against the luminous background 
of a clear sky, and take on, in the absence of a 
perspective which would show their true propor- 
tion, the importance of such a military mass in 
motion as, perhaps, might bring a decision. 

In the plain the parks of materials and muni- 
tions are scattered about. There are picketed 
horses, assemblages of vehicles awaiting- the hour 
for moving, tents, with an indescribable swarming 
of life inside and outside the enclosure — a distant 
vision of the gypsy camps that Gallot liked — 
while at a few yards from us there sit three 
Moroccans majestically robed in saffron, motion- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 325 

less and grave, in the muddy trough of the gutter 
which they have taken for a resting-place, and 
where they are conversing doubtless about the 
things of eternity. In the distance cannon are 
sounding. 

I look on and wonder, struck to the heart by 
the moving spectacle of this assemblage of forces 
so completely melted into one that the Islamic 
immobility of an ideal meditation seems to crown 
with a higher and intangible resolution this 
multitude of men and beasts slowly but irre- 
sistibly moving toward the action. 

And it is old pictures indeed out of history 
which, in varied aspects, the cycle of ethnic strug- 
gles brings back in recurring periods of time to 
the sight of fleeting men. In these same fields, 
the great highways of the invasions which the 
longing for the Occident launched against the 
Gauls, what hordes of fierce savagery have passed, 
in prophecy of their legitimate descendants — 
these atrocious tribes of the Boches, greedy for 
all the brutalities of bloodshed, for all the refine- 
ments of torture and destruction! 

Then, as now, our men were rushing to the 
defense of their home. We are thus living over 
again a very old history, which our wars of the 
Revolution so magnificently continued. And if the 
folly of some men was to believe that, since the 
treasure of civilization was growing in propor- 
tion with the grand evolution of high ideas of jus- 
tice governing the movements of men in blissful 
peace, the irreducible barbarism of the human 
beasts beyond the Ehine would cease to hold over 
us the menace of immemorial violence in which 



326 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

progress was, for them, only an opportunity to 
introduce perfected methods of barbarity, I love 
to think that these tender mystics of eternal peace 
have left, at The Hague, as at Berne, the last 
vestiges of an innocence finally disillusioned. 

In older days these good Huns, whose saddles 
were adorned with human heads, but who perhaps 
had fits of tenderness in their hours of fatigue, 
assembled in revolting bloody heaps the products 
of the pillages in which their clouded primitive 
minds could discern nothing but the legitimate 
exercise of a force of nature. To-day the " intel- 
lectuals' ' of Deutschland Hber Alles look in the 
flaming shop-windows of Berlin at the furniture, 
and objets d'art, and the fine textiles of France, 
the use of which must appear strange to them — 
all of it nearly cleansed of the red stains the 
traces of which are precious certificates of its 
origin. The sweet Frau brightens up, and the 
children demand a bit of something for a souvenir. 
No useless blushing; " scientists,' ' "artists," 
"thinkers" of all categories, let your good nature 
enjoy itself fully. This only cost the trouble of 
killing women and children, after some prelim- 
inary tortures at which German modesty need 
not be alarmed. Enrich your family home with 
a proud lot of these souvenirs. You are the race 
that takes pleasure in these things — progressive 
only in the "system of organization" which per- 
mits you to increase and multiply the horror of 
them. Take them without false timidity. These 
remains are worthy of your sentiments, of your 
character, of your Teutonic idealism. 

Nevertheless,, we are at Suippes, which is 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 327 

riddled with shells, shattered, devastated. Ambu- 
lances are everywhere, even in unbelievable ' 1 shel- 
ters" constructed under the ruins. There is the 
miracle of certain houses still intact, and the 
higher miracle of the serenity of the inhabitants. 
It is the dominant note of all in this cataclysm 
inflicted on civilization. No one is astonished. In 
this collapse of everything, there seems to be noth- 
ing that can provoke a nervous start. As, from 
his window, one used to see peaceful humanity 
passing, so now, from the same balcony, one con- 
templates all the accumulations of horror, and 
eyes and lips accept, immovably, the passage of 
destiny. 

Soldiers at rest — a rest well earned — are chat- 
ting, without gestures, with an air of content, as 
they might do in garrison. Ambulances are pro- 
ceeding to their destinations, going to receive their 
charge of wounded or to deliver them in the rear. 
Provisions are being distributed. All seems sim- 
ple and normal. Everything is in its place, and 
every man. Everything is the reverse of what it 
was once ; but this is inevitable. One must admit 
that all is as it should be; that is to say, all is 
well. 

Groups of Moroccans, always sumptuously clad, 
seem to have forgotten, in a smiling rigidity that 
shows sharp teeth, that yesterday their furious 
rush carried away all resistance at the price of 
cruel losses. It is said that a strong party of 
Germans, surrounded, refused to surrender, but 
that on learning that we were going to send them 
the Moroccans, they could not raise their hands 
fast enough in capitulation. Moroccans or little 



328 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

poilus with, bayonet ready — our Bodies may hesi- 
tate as to their choice. It is all one. 

We desired to see General Marchand and con- 
gratulate him, for everyone is saying that he made 
a plunge forward such as the maddest imagination 
would not have predicted. There is a veritable 
explosion of admiring epithets. The major has 
just announced a little fever. We shall not trouble 
the wounded hero, whose life, fortunately, is not 
in danger. We shall have our congratulations and 
good wishes communicated to him. 

We are conducted to the church, totally gutted, 
where structures of planks permitted the organ- 
izing of sheltered parties. The floor is covered 
with straw, with heaps of broken statues and of 
religious objects. Everywhere are wounded men 
stretched out, among whom nurses and surgeons 
are noiselessly circulating. We have here only 
" small wounds" — that is, men who have come 
from the first-aid stations for a relatively short 
stay in the rear. For lack of room some of them 
have taken seats on broken shafts of columns, 
others even on wood crossed in the form of chairs. 
What a change of scene ! 

Always the same impassive faces — one would 
say they were proof against emotional expression. 
An effect of traumatism, says the scientist. That 
is a name for it. What I see in it is a combina- 
tion of the memory of the shock that halted them 
with the eager thought of the renewal that must 
follow. Coming out, I approach a little chap, of 
inexpressive countenance, with beard and hair 
rumpled, under a helmet pierced by shrapnel. 
Seated on a real chair, at the door, he bursts into 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 329 

a smile, and his disordered face brightens at the 
recital of his "accident." The helmet had saved 
him. He laughs good-hnmoredly while telling 
about it. 

"I'm not through yet," he growls, half beneath 
his breath. 

That is the word that is continually on the lips 
of them all. No, we are not through yet ; the little 
wounded poilu is right, biding his time for the 
Boche even amid the straw of the ambulance — 
and we shall not be through until we, of our own 
will, have agreed upon the end — an end that fits 
our idea of right. 

October 4, 1915, 

The Langtjedoc Corridor 

And now oif to Souain. It is the most hazard- 
ous part of the trip, for one does not know any 
too well what is happening a short distance away, 
and the course of this mute and willing crowd is 
such as suffers no delay. As in a double slide bar, 
we are caught between two opposite currents. One 
is returning from the front, its mission accom- 
plished. The other is pushed forward by the 
force of pressing duty. There are the same spec- 
tacles of regulated tumult under the rule of a 
silence still more imposing in proportion as the 
goal is approached. Blocks occur in the traffic; 
one waits without a word, until the two streams 
resume, without eddies, their courses in opposite 
directions. 

The road has suffered, but everywhere I found 
road and bridge machines ready to repair it. One 



330 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

cannot demand that a load of stone follow oppor- 
tunely the explosion of each shell, to fill up the 
hole — which is wider than it is deep. We are 
therefore tossed and jolted, but we cannot but 
be astonished that the jolting is not worse. Some 
horsemen have crossed over beyond the ditch, to 
get along as they can. In clumps of pine we catch 
sight of groups at rest, unless indeed these are 
waiting-posts. Horses are luxuriously chewing 
the resinous shoots — a war-time appetite ! 

Soon our ranks are thinning. At the approaches 
to the front, deploying at right angles to the high- 
way, men, beasts, and vehicles have slowly dis- 
persed, each toward his proper destination, and 
when our guide declares that we must abandon 
the automobile for the excellent exercise of the 
pedestrian, we are able to make our way without 
much trouble. One could even get along without 
great fatigue but for the worry of getting over 
the mounds without end thrown up by the shells. 
You have the help of the good mule behind you, 
who pushes you on gently with his head, and of 
the good mule in front, whose rump is a support 
to you. But the mule has other things to do. Of 
his own accord he leaves the road for the park 
where he is awaited. The space now becomes open 
enough for wagons to pass at a slow trot. 

The plain is disclosed — a somber, chalky stretch 
dominated by the knoll of the Navarin farm. My 
glance darts forward, frightened at not being able 
to stop at anything. In the hollow, at our feet, 
is what was Souain — that is to say, slabs of walls 
with the debris of beams which look as if scattered 
about by volcanic explosion. Spots of black, here 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 331 

and there, indicate that the work of the grave- 
diggers is not yet completed. In the ditch itself, 
bodies that have gripped each other in death lie 
side by side, some of them tragically stretched out 
with their eyes to the vast vault above, others bent 
or distorted, with their hands over their faces, as 
if in meditation — an eternal meditation. And 
there are dead horses lying in convulsive attitudes. 

The shells have all of a sudden broken the peace 
on the horizon, some of them aimed at the road 
along which the throngs of Souain may serve as 
target. No one pays attention to them. These 
men, whose impassivity seemed natural a while 
ago, now exhibit an immovable calm under the ex- 
plosions out of which mount high columns of 
smoke streaked with screaming fragments of steel. 
But no one turns his head. The soldiers pass on, 
indifferent, isolated. 

The height of Navarin, in front of us, is a desert, 
plowed by projectiles from every direction, fur- 
rowed everywhere by invisible trenches under our 
batteries of 75 's, which, from time to time, break 
out with sharp detonations. People are risking 
prophecies as to a renewal of the offensive. There 
is no sign to indicate the presence of the Boche. 
On our side, black formations on the horizon seem 
to indicate troops getting ready. 

The shells are tearing down the trees on the 
road. Nevertheless our guide says we can climb 
to the Navarin farm, from which we shall certainly 
see things. The sequel will show that this hope 
was far from being realized. 

We start out across fields, and soon come up to 
our 75 's, the fire of which is growing decidedly 



332 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

hotter. We find the mute artillerymen going 
through automatic movements just where one 
might have expected a bustling activity of combat. 
In the vast expanse where every man is charged 
with the supreme resolution of a mortal moment, 
one sees nothing, hears nothing. An exploding 
shell brings a shrug of shoulders, and the shrapnel 
with its little white smoke seems like a plaything. 
It is fine to note that the voice of the 75 gives a 
joyous impression of something decisive, like a 
loud snapping of a flag. Everywhere one has the 
impression of formidable power working, but con- 
cealing its deepest designs, like our classic Provi- 
dence, only to have them burst into view more 
magnificently. 

The single individual, in this tragic universe, 
is but a lost atom. A while ago, at the sight of 
the military torrent rolling on toward this plain 
in irresistible waves, I seemed to see all of France 
at work, in an impassable wall, on all the roads 
from the Vosges to the ocean, where she has driven 
back the invasion. And now, suddenly, all this 
swarm is dispersed, in orderly movements, and 
made ready for the releasing of energies which 
must carry all before them at the chosen moment. 
What is an imperceptible man in the infinite 
drama in which the peoples, in which mankind 
itself, struggles with the aid of all the forces that 
have been afforded by the energies of the great 
globe, upon which even the most terrible cata- 
clysms make hardly the pleasant sensation of a 
momentary thrill? 

We have passed our 75 's, which are resounding 
merrily behind us. Shrapnel and shell pass so far 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 333 

over our heads that, in spite of appearances, we 
are almost in a zone of safety. Above our heads 
the detonations, which are growing more numer- 
ous, accompany us like a glad salute. And all 
would have been well enough if the Boche had not 
thought, as it seemed, that they discerned a cer- 
tain banter in our shadows spotting the white 
plain. They are seeking us out with their ignoble 
guns, and would possibly have found us if the 
order had not come to take to the trenches. A 
leap into the nearest hole, and we are in a good 
defile in the ground, in which, by going sidewise 
at the right places, a man may easily make his 
way. The trench twists and turns no end of times, 
so as not to allow a projectile an enfilading line, 
and then there are hillocks which make the pedes- 
trian jump above ground for a moment only to 
plunge immediately back — arrangements well 
fitt*ed to avoid a tedious monotony. 

We are still persevering on our way toward 
Navarin when an official warning comes that it 
will not be possible to go further. Navarin is full 
of snares. All of a sudden, in fact, there bursts 
over our heads a din of artillery in which the 
explosions are mingled into one continuous roar. 
Even our inexperienced ears easily distinguish 
shots on either side. I do not know what we 
should look like stretched close to the ground, but 
in the comfortable trench there is no need of effort 
to keep an expression of quiet equanimity. 

Our good little 75 is making havoc merrily and 
we want to keep on demanding more than it can 
do. The great awkward shell from the other side 
comes stupidly along with its sound as of some- 



334 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

thing frying which assures one of its destination. 
My friend Poissonnier, whom I will present to 
you in a moment, loses no occasion to show his 
scorn of this ridiculous implement, on which he 
tirelessly showers his most disdainful invectives, 
to say nothing of what he feels about the natural 
imbecility of the gunner, who excels in missing 
his target. 

Leaning against the side of the trench, which 
trembles with the nearby explosions, we are won- 
dering whether chance has not thrown us into a 
bombardment preparatory to the famous attack 
of which there was talk at Souain, or whether this 
is merely a passing fit of fury. We are not in the 
first line. Everything is therefore going on in 
normal fashion. In single file each one of us 
seems to take up too much room, for, to make us 
give way, soldiers who pass by us throw us the 
laconic words — "We have an errand." 

It is queer that in the immediate presence of 
the man in the trenches, the chance comer has the 
strange surprise of being embarrassed for some- 
thing to say. In any circumstances one does not 
approach the laborer at his work without respect 
and timidity. What can one say when the work 
into which the laborer has plunged is of such im- 
portance that he has given his all to it, staked 
upon it the dearest things in life? What supreme 
tactlessness to trouble him with a foolish question, 
when the hour is and can be only for action ! One 
wants to compress into one word some expression 
of fraternal good- will, but before anything is said 
one feels that encouragement comes rather from 
the man whom one wants to encourage. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 335 

We go about reasoning and philosophizing and 
seeking means of action. He, from the first mo- 
ment, has found his way, in the one thought of 
putting the enemy out of battle. He and we have 
lived, thus, at less than a hundred kilometers from 
each other, and we felt ourselves very near each 
other, but although moved by the same impulse 
when we meet, we are astonished at having been 
so far apart. 

The brutal revelation came to me when Ser- 
geant Poissonnier, from Roubaix, inspecting his 
trench in a nonchalant manner, obliged us in pass- 
ing with this profitable information: 

" Where are you going? For Souain you only 
have to take the Languedoc Corridor." 

And as we were unable to restrain a look of 
ignorance, the boy smiled indulgently, as might 
a Parisian if he met someone on the Place de la 
Concorde asking for the Rue de Rivoli. 

Where could we have come from, that we did 
not know the Languedoc Corridor? The idea is 
amusing enough to make Poissonnier burst out 
laughing. He restrains himself, however, so as 
not to hurt our feelings. 

' ' I '11 show you the way, ■ ' he says. * ' Come on. ' ' 

And we follow meekly, charmed by the pleasant 
encounter. 

October 5, 1915. 

Seegeant Poissonnxeb 

I said that the trench in which chance had 
thrown me was no longer in the first line, for our 
soldiers had taken over the premises of the 



336 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Boches somewhere in the neighborhood of the 
Navarin farm. Without speaking of the dead who 
lie here and there on the field, we can see plenty 
of signs indicating that yesterday the battle raged 
between the two ramparts of earth where I find 
myself temporarily sheltered. Everywhere are 
ruined weapons, splinters of shell, fragments of 
things which it is useless to specify. A cyclone 
has passed. 

The corridor, nevertheless, has retained its re- 
cent aspect of life. Everything in it still bears the 
mark of a habitation ingeniously arranged. Niches 
cut as deep as the hand can reach serve as shelves, 
where grenades ready for throwing, scattered 
cartridges, and on the ground, sometimes, ma- 
chines of steel which we are recommended to step 
over without disturbing, remain in memory of the 
struggle the noise of which is still continuing over 
our heads. I shall not describe the trenches as 
delightful, but it is easily apparent that the men 
fighting have made themselves resolutely at home 
here. Some are lying here still, in the last im- 
mobility. Their comrades have gone ahead, into 
the German trenches conquered around Navarin, 
which are but a point of departure for a new push- 
ing back of the enemy. 

It is in coming from those trenches that, one by 
one, or grouped by order of an officer, they ap- 
pear suddenly in front of us from time to time, 
at the turn of the corridor, without even an excla- 
mation of surprise escaping them at sight of us, 
because they have long been beyond astonishment. 
They are silent passers-by, whose clothing un- 
doubtedly needs the play of stiff brushes, but who 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 337 

are not nondescript like those whom one can elbow 
in the Eue de Eivoli. In this place, at this hour, 
all necessarily friends, sbme of them slip by, 
busily, without taking time for a "Good morn- 
ing." Others, for reasons of which they owe us 
no explanation, stop for brief bits of idle conver- 
sation, asking questions without waiting for an 
answer, or explaining things about which no one 
has asked a question. 

Without tragic expression — on the contrary, 
since their faces are more given to smiling — their 
eyes, sometimes, seem to say something different 
from their words. It is because the words are 
imprisoned between walls of earth, whereas their 
glances, seeking the unforeseen, dart beyond the 
embankment of the ditch overhung by an open 
sky — where pass, nevertheless, some storms. 

Would one believe it? It is when the uproar 
of the artillery is at its height that our party feels 
the need of stopping for a moment of rest and con- 
versation. 

"Here's a shelter right now," says the good 
Sergeant Poissonnier. i i This won 't last long. Sit 
down and wait. It will be all over soon." 

I look at the shelter. It is a step as high as 
one 's waist, where, by squeezing, two men may sit 
down. Hollowed into the side of the trench near- 
est the Boches, it may be, in fact, of some protec- 
tion. Something tells me that I have waded long 
enough in this labyrinth of mud and that a pause 
will not be without its charms. For the ground, 
where one finds neither stepping-stones nor 
planks, is either covered with muddy pools or 
soiled with inexpressible things, and does not 



338 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

exactly invite one to the familiarities of sitting 
down. I therefore crouch upon the tempting 
step, propped against a comfortable neighbor, and 
I will not conceal the fact that the place seemed to 
me divinely appropriate to playful conversation. 
The poilus, who are afraid of nothing, stretch 
themselves comfortably on the ground, in such 
positions as suit them. A calm and peaceful well- 
being invades us. Never was easy chair or sofa 
so comfortable. 

These men are no talkers. They manifestly 
delight in the pleasures of horizontal extension, 
and experience a contentment too profound for 
expression. There are smiles of good will for 
intruders such as we, and running comments, 
suited to our limited intelligence, about the life 
of the trenches. I listen, with occasional ex- 
clamations intended to manifest a willingness to 
share the common feeling. In my heart I want 
to question them about everything, to feed upon 
their stories, to get at their sensations, their 
thought, the states of mind which possibly escape 
their own analysis. You may be surprised if, be- 
tween two explosions, I recoil before the unap- 
proachable task. Following the example of my 
companions, moreover, I am more desirous of 
making myself easy in the place than of wearying 
my reposeful spirits. 

Leaning against his homelike wall of earth, 
Sergeant Poissonnier, with his ruddy, healthy 
face framed by his blond hair, leads in the con- 
versation. With great blue eyes full of bantering 
good-humor, a boyish smile in the enjoyment of 
an active life, and a well-modulated voice which 



FRANCE PACING GERMANY 339 

enunciates his syllables with a nice articulation 
such as a pupil of the Conservatory might envy, 
Poissonnier of Boubaix, like an august ephebe 
modeled in the school of Polyclitus, dominates the 
assembly by virtue of a moral superiority of 
which he is ignorant. He exhales I know not 
what placid contentment which hovers around his 
ruddy cheeks as a light zephyr might hover over 
a limpid pool under a July heaven. He is a boy 
having fun, having fun in his heart, and a great 
deal of it, all the while employing all his tact in 
order not to manifest the fact too clearly. 

"Who is that civilian I " he asks us in a whisper. 

At the name, his eye sparkles, and with a grand 
gesture that embraces the heaven and the earth 
he says: 

' ' Well ! Here 's stuff for some nice articles ! ' ' 

"Nice" seemed a little feeble to me, but the 
thought was large enough, though doubtless a 
bit disdainful; for as to those articles, it is better 
to live them than to sit down and write them. 
But Poissonnier is free from condescension. He 
takes kindly to my weakness, and, to encourage 
me, even explains to me, with a view to necessary 
precautions, the art of interpreting the uproar 
without. In the whistling of the most ordinary 
shell there are, it appears, qualities of sound 
which it is important to analyze and distinguish, 
with a view to the measures that must be taken 
for security. Prompt judgment, followed by im- 
mediate action for safety— that is the main 
thing. 

"You don't have very long to tell which of the 
crowd of shells are coming your way. But there 



340 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

is still enough time to throw yourself flat on the 
ground. Only, you mustn't hesitate." 

It is easy to see that Poissonnier knows all 
about the business. He knows the value of an 
instant. Never did a man seem better adapted 
to this muddy trench — one would say he was 
born to it. To tell the truth, my feeling is that 
Poissonnier would not be out of place anywhere. 
But here he seems to be most completely at his 
ease. It is as if fortune had sent him to me as 
an example of the French soldier engaged in the 
good game of military action, of which he cares 
to know nothing except that victory is beyond 
question, since he has given himself up wholly to 
the defense of the land. 

For, if I do not dare to ask questions, Pois- 
sonnier, on his side, has nothing to ask of me. 
He tells me about things in a spirit of friendly 
banter, but my opinion as to what he has done 
or will do is the last thing that would trouble 
him. I must have some need of him, he feels, 
since I have come to seek him. But I am outside 
of his sphere of action. Before him there is a 
clear road. He goes right ahead. Nothing would 
be strong enough to make him waver. Happy 
youth, illuminated by the light of duty, marching 
on in the inexpressible joy of finding, at the dawn 
of life, a supreme fulfilment of glory ! 

Even in the scornful silence of Poissonnier 
about the war, about its conditions and its 
hazards, about calculations as to its duration, 
about its miseries, which do not seem to affect 
him, about even the resistance of the enemy, there 
is apparent a grandeur of soul superior to any- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 341 

thing that may happen. He is willing to do 
anything, without even understanding how he 
could be otherwise. 

That is just why, since my brief stay in the 
Navarin trench, I cannot help measuring men and 
events by the standard of the sentiments that 
radiated from Sergeant Poissonnier — that noble 
model of French youth in the full flower of its 
ardor for service to the country, the race, the 
history, the home. " Honor to Roubaix!" I 
should say, but for the fact that, as we all know, 
there are as many Roubaix as there are cities and 
villages on our soil, bringing forth as many 
Sergeant Poissonniers as may be necessary for 
the defense of the native land. 

Yesterday a good citizen of French Switzer- 
land, who had completed his studies in Germany, 
told me he had received letters from his former 
companions at the university who condemned the 
madness of the Kaiser and who now reject the 
monstrous notion of Deutschland uber Alles, 
What a contrast between this weariness of the 
Germans and the resolute and tireless serenity 
which exalts the soul of my lovable Sergeant 
Poissonnier! 

With the boy from Roubaix we finished our in- 
terminable trip through the ground, plunging 
against sacks of earth at deadly craters which 
bore witness of the ravages of artillery or of 
hand-to-hand fights that had left bloody ruins to 
tell their dark story. There were shelves dug into 
the side of the embankment, covered with rem- 
nants of coarse goods which we did not dare 
to lift. And in the depths there were subter- 



342 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

ranean rooms, rudely furnished, where the 
wounded are dragged down to die. Imposing 
hypogea from the history of yesterday out of 
which will follow new and historic developments 
of mingled misery and grandeur ! I pause on the 
threshold of them, as if held back by fear of 
profanation. 

Sergeant Poissonnier, with all his attention 
directed upon the cannonade on which his hope 
was fixed, saw nothing, thought of nothing except 
the thunder of the artillery which offered him the 
vision of German trenches torn to pieces and of 
ground prepared for the coming advance. I 
really think he had only one idea left — to get rid 
of us. Why had our foolish, prosaic apparition 
come to trouble the dream in which he was going 
along so happily, and from whose enchantment, 
until after its final fulfilment, he will refuse to 
be delivered? He was hastening his pace in his 
sinuous Languedoc Corridor, distancing us, and 
forgetting us, until a rallying cry came from one 
of our party who attempted to moderate the 
speed. We were two hundred paces from the 
sheds of Souain when the signal was given for 
a parting which may have brought to him some 
little relief. 

We ought doubtless to have expressed to him 
our lively thanks for hospitality in such moving 
circumstances. And as for him, would he not 
have been glad to entrust us with some message 
for Eoubaix? But on both sides we had too many 
things to express in our leave-taking. That is 
why we could only press hands in silence, with 
vague expressions of restrained emotion half re- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 343 

vealing things in our hearts that were so much 
the more precious in that one is unable to put 
them into cold words. 

Sergeant Poissonnier has other things to do 
than to keep us in mind. But I shall not forget 
him. It may be that he will have no chance to 
write his name on some glorious monument. But 
he will have lived his life, and, by the gift of 
noble lives like his, France will live. 

October 6, 1915. 



VIII 

THE SECOND WINTER CAMPAIGN 
THE LOAN 

Officers and Men 

... I have great pleasure in speaking of the 
relations between our officers and their men, be- 
cause the former professional arrogance, foolishly 
imitated from the Prussians, has completely dis- 
appeared. All are in the same service. All are 
of the same will. All are fraternally united in 
the single purpose of safeguarding the home, of 
preserving the native land. Every creed or 
doctrine has united men, or pretended to unite 
them, in every period. The Christians them- 
selves, bearers of a religion of love, have not 
ceased from killing one another, — which attests a 
faulty bond of unison, — while the rally for the 
defense of the land of our fathers, of the history 
it has made, and of the persevering effort of gen- 
erations for an ideal of national life, has every- 
where brought about the grandest and noblest 
expansions of energy. 

That is why I am happy to affirm that, without 
any harm to discipline, the privates and the 
officers of the French army are intimately and 
completely united as never before. They are re- 

344 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 345 

solved on the same thing and in the same way. 
They are resolved to obtain, through the same 
nobility of unreserved sacrifice, the deliverance 
of the French soil, which is happily bound up 
with all that represents the honor of man's spirit 
and the independence of his will, not only in 
Europe but throughout the civilized world. 
Truly such a cause is worth the sacrifice of war, 
for the soldier thus lives a life above that of 
mean mortality, when he goes, under such a flag, 
to keep his rendez-vous with death. 

Such is our case and it is indeed this that 
causes our infinite superiority to those butcherers 
of women and torturers of children who devote 
themselves, according to method, to all the 
crimes of beastliness in order that their abjectly 
servile Germany may be " above all," including 
the moral sense of civilized man. These brutes 
exert themselves against unfortunate defenseless 
creatures for the right of spreading and increasing 
their ignominy. And since we are fighting for 
what is highest in humanity, knowing that cen- 
turies of noble combats cannot end in what is 
lowest, we are able to put forth exertions of 
physical and moral force which no enemy, though 
he were a pure miracle of organized power, is 
capable of overcoming. All these little experi- 
ments to see wiiether conversations can be opened 
for a German peace show well enough that these 
magnificent "victors" have preserved enough 
good sense to understand to what humiliation we 
shall certainly reduce them. 

It is our little soldier and his officers of every 
rank, who, having accomplished this first part of 



346 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the work, are getting ready, in the serene sim- 
plicity of great hearts, to bring it to full com- 
pletion. 

... I have told of the unity in heart and soul 
which indefectibly welds our men and their 
leaders together in the combat. Whatever their 
number, they are one. Ask General Marchand 
how, in Champagne, he was able to achieve, at 
one prodigious effort, a task that seemed all but 
impossible. He fell, and too many of his officers 
with him. But ask those who remain of his 
soldiers, ask the whole army whether there will 
be lacking men to follow him when he is restored 
from the wound which was meant to be mortal 
to the fulness of his active powers. Listen to 
the soldiers as they speak of the officers who lead 
them into the fire. Listen to the officers when 
they talk of their soldiers. These noble connois- 
seurs in valor respect each other, admire and love 
each other, under a heroic conception of duty 
which no people of any epoch will be able to 
surpass. 

November 7, 1915. 

The War Loan 

On the eve of our great war loan I desire to 
respond, for my own part, to the appeal that 
M. Ribot has just addressed to all Frenchmen. 
This implacable struggle, which tests the moral 
and physical strength of the people of our time 
beyond anything that was the lot of our fore- 
fathers, demands of us the noble sacrifice of blood 



FKANCE PACING GERMANY 347 

which our old territorials, sometimes somber of 
countenance and silently resolute, are proud to 
offer to their country, side by side with this 
glorious younger generation who are giving their 
all, and who only regret, when they fall on the 
field of battle, that they have not given enough. 

We see some of them passing us every day, 
adorned with bandages, who seem to ask pardon 
for not having done better and who rage against 
doctors and relatives and friends because they 
want yet to satisfy that appetite for glory which 
no act of heroic valor can appease. These men 
are the ones that we have given, as the most 
precious possessions of our souls, as the highest 
expression of our resolution, as the purest blood 
from our hearts, and our only sorrow is that, in 
these great hours of tragedy, we cannot enter the 
overwhelming struggle with them, and dedicate 
to it the last days of our declining life, from now 
on without value. 

To excuse ourselves, in our own eyes, for such 
a painful absence, we send to them, in every way 
that is open, whatever we can of material as- 
sistance. Though this is never enough it is still 
precious to them because the best of our feeling 
and affection accompanied it, and because the 
message of the home, so near and still so far away, 
carries to its height the sublime joy of condensing 
all that is glorious in life into one sudden flash 
of superhuman feeling. 

The heroes, old and young, still robed in 
modesty, who have found a way to glorify the 
history of France beyond the heights reached by 
those ancestors who had confidently promised 



348 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

themselves that tliey would never be surpassed — 
these heroes we welcome, and care for, and en- 
deavor to provide, between two heroic efforts of 
sublime devotion, with a moment of the gentle 
joy of home, in which is retempered, like the 
sword-blade by the magic virtue of a chosen 
spring, the loftiest energy of the human being — 
love made into resolution. 

But while these men are giving so much that 
our weak hearts are perhaps tempted even to 
whisper to them that they must not give too 
much, can we look upon ourselves with steady 
eye and silently take credit to ourselves for giving 
enough? No. If age or the accidents of life 
have deprived us of the means of being equal 
to those whom we accompany only with our hopes, 
a duty no less imperious has fallen to us in the 
immense exertion of a whole people, from the 
strongest to the feeblest, for all that we are re- 
solved to save of the sacred images of our home 
from the furies of barbarism. 

Yes, the old man who is soon to die, before 
having received the anxiously awaited reward of 
the glorious news, the immeasurable joy of which 
will make us bow first in tears over cherished 
tombs; yes, these women who knit with trembling 
fingers, dreaming of that magnificent parade of 
the return in which will pass before us, — amid 
tattered flags unfurled to the winds filled with 
martial music, amid acclamations mingled with 
sobs of joy, amid cries and clapping of hands, and 
flowers, and gestures that express an irresistible 
desire to love and to be loved, to be united, — a 
procession of youths old in victories, and of 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 349 

men intoxicated with grandeur, with contracted 
brows, and glances charged with lightning, limp- 
ing behind officers dazzled with prospects, who, 
for this moment, would like to be in the ranks, 
in order not to lose any part of the glory of the 
soldier; yes, those children who, without under- 
standing anything of what this enormous prodigy 
has cost in tears and blood and ruin, will clap 
their little hands at the sublime sorrows of which 
they can only see the sumptuous lining of radiant 
joy — all these are of the battle in this hour, all, 
without any exception, even if they cannot un- 
derstand it, even if they cannot feel it. 

They are of the murderous combat, because 
they experience its wounds in privations, in 
wretchedness, in sickness, in grief; because they 
are falling no less certainly than those who stand 
under shellfire, and are marking out in their turn 
the great highway of France by their premature 
graves. All of them have suffered alike, all of 
them have gained glory alike — the men who file 
past in military order with eyes straining toward 
the great press of French souls, and the inex- 
pressibly tumultuous crowd which has rushed 
hither to marvel at its own embodiment in this 
mass of soldiery — in this moving, rustling, prodi- 
gious river of steel, where are reflected hopes 
too noble to be capable of expression in mere 
words. 

Frenchmen, if you would see that day, you must 
deserve it, you must pay the price for it, you 
must purchase it. At this moment they are 
paying without keeping count, those pale men 
covered with mud, under the symbolic blue helmet 



350 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

which sits upon their heads like a miniature of 
the great azured vault. They are paying without 
keeping count, always gay, always proud, always 
brightened by that indescribable smile of con- 
fidence, that eternal mark of souls that cannot 
bow. 

I have seen some of them, covered with bloody 
bandages, heaped up indescribably in tractors that 
carried them from the field of battle, darting 
swift glances of tranquil gaiety at the men who 
with the precautions of careful mothers were ex- 
erting themselves to extract them, from a ghastly 
entanglement of their wounded fellows. They 
were laughing; yes, I tell you they were laugh- 
ing, and one of them, so cruelly torn that one 
did not know how to take hold of him, turned 
toward me as I dared to approach him with a 
word of sympathy and threw me this word, in 
a burst of laughter: 

"Believe me, it's all right. The Boches are 
done for." 

I could not have answered without seizing him 
in my arms. Those are our Frenchmen — our 
soldiers, our brothers and sons, in front of whom, 
once they meet man to man, the Boche kneels and 
throws up his hands to beg mercy. From the dis- 
tance the machine gun mows down our men, when 
a clear path has not been made for them. But 
the moment they meet the enemy face to face, 
and it must always come to that, weakness 
crumbles before the invincible force of full man- 
hood. 

Well, I repeat it, we must pay for that. We 
must pay for it with the vile money which fate 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 351 

does not always distribute equitably, and which 
can to-day atone for many things through the 
generous contribution, from rich and poor in full 
partnership, of all that prudence, from now on 
too base, might inspire us to reserve. We must 
give money in order that our men may have the 
right to pour out their blood. Who would dare 
to risk the shame of saying, "I shall wait, I'll 
do it some other time!" For such a man would 
be a traitor to his race, to his people, to his very 
home, since, according to the just and impressive 
words of M. Eibot, his dishonorable parsimony 
could only be the ransom of defeat instead of the 
price of that victory of which a high fortune 
offers him the chance at this time. 

I wish that this admirable speech of M. Eibot 
could be condensed into a little poster placarded 
in all public places instead of those stupid and 
timid words, "Taisez-vous, mefiez-vous!" No, 
no; speak, speak, O Frenchmen, as loud as you 
care to, and let all Bochery rush up to hear you! 
Say fearlessly what you have in your hearts, for 
it is necessary, in the first place, that those who 
pretend to impose silence on you hear you and 
be capable of understanding you — and all the 
retinue of the Kaiser in their turn. You have 
nothing to conceal, for not less proudly than 
those on the field of battle you believe in your- 
selves and you will find great joy in saying so 
out loud. Do not be afraid, for the enemy can 
learn nothing from you that is not noble and 
good, and reassuring for France, though threaten- 
ing and fatal for unspeakable Bochery. 

And when you have spoken the words of 



352 FRANCE PACING GERMANY 

France, you must live her life by giving her the 
means to live. You have already furnished her 
with more than a billion in gold of your free 
will. This is but a beginning. You must keep 
up the work; you must finish it. One does not 
stop half-way on the path to full nobility, pro- 
claiming that he feels weak, that he is getting 
tired. (The glory of the strong has, for counter- 
balance, the degradation of the feeble.) Either 
France will cease to be or she will be a land of 
strong men. Everyone to the loan window, be 
it to subscribe little or much. He who gives the 
least is perhaps the most meritorious. There is a 
story of an old woman, who, bringing in her gold, 
was surprised to receive bank-notes and cried out : 
"How is this? Are you giving back money?" 
It was the sublime expression of a heart that 
wanted to reserve nothing. That is the example 
to follow. There are those among us who are 
gaining great sums of money in this appalling 
crisis of universal misery. Let them secure their 
pardon. I would whisper in their ear that it is 
time they did so. There is a grand bourgeoisie 
in France. It is time for them to impose silence 
on their adversaries. And let the lesser bour- 
geoisie who have already contributed search in 
the bottom of their safety-boxes; they will still 
find a little packet of coins or notes, kept for the 
unforeseen. Well, my friends, to-day i& the un- 
foreseen. What could there be more unforeseen 
than that France should be threatened for her 
life, than that our country, our race, our terri- 
tory should be in danger of perishing. Beyond 
this there is nothing more to say. 



PRANCE FACING GERMANY 353 

The Frenchman is given to saving. And the 
danger of this is that it may change the saver, 
fully bent on his economy, into a hoarder. Even 
this, perhaps, does not deserve to be condemned, 
but only on condition that each one can choose 
the moment when this laboriously amassed ac- 
cumulation of resources, great or small, shall find 
its true employment in the aid of a cause which 
raises a natural feeling of foresight into a higher 
virtue. Since there would be nothing for us to 
foresee if France were destroyed, the supreme 
day of payment has arrived for the saver. Let 
him pay with his gold as others do with their 
blood, and France is saved. As to the terms of 
the investment (!) I shall not say a word, for 
the Minister of Finance has the duty of making 
them known, and if the natural condition of 
things is such that one cannot be disinterested in 
them, it is enough to be able to say that lenders 
great and small will not make a bad business 
deal for themselves personally. The financial 
point of view is not negligible. I only ask my 
fellow citizens to forget, for the moment, that 
a correct calculation of profit would show well 
in their favor, and to lift themselves to the 
height of a disinterested act. I wish that there 
might not be a single family in which there was 
not preserved like one of those ancient titles of 
knighthood, a receipt, however modest, permitting 
them to proclaim: "I was in the war loan of 
1915." Readers, friends or enemies, subscribe! 

November 14, 1915. 



354 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Chirping for Peace 

. . . What is this! Have they launched them- 
selves against the world; have they violated in 
all men's eyes every agreement that honor is 
obligated to respect; have they overwhelmed de- 
fenseless Belgium; have they shed so much in- 
nocent blood that the Duke of Alva is almost 
regretted ; have they murdered more old men and 
women and children ; have they pillaged, ravaged, 
and destroyed more cities than the most terrible 
devastators ; have they made more mothers weep 
than were dreamed of by that romantic butcher, 
Attila, from now on moderate, who was stunned 
into respect before an embryonic Paris ; have they 
found a way to condense and epitomize all these 
things in that most typically German murder of 
a woman before whose grave all humanity stands 
bareheaded — have they done all this only to stop 
half-way on the trip from Riga to Bagdad and 
say to us, the armed men of Belgium and France, 
of Great Britain and Italy and Russia, not "This 
is my will," but, quite modestly, "Are you will- 
ing!" 

By no means, Sire; we are not willing. We 
have never been willing, and we shall never be 
so: that is the whole of the matter. Take this 
for our declaration. We were not willing when 
you were on the Marne. We continue to be un- 
willing now that you are no longer there. Your 
proposals? We do not even want to know them. 
They do not interest us. We do not desire any- 
thing that you desire. Do you see how simple 
it is 1 And to complete the statement, understand 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 355 

that we do desire, in our inflexible determination, 
all that you do not; namely, justice, independence 
with honor, freedom for peoples as for indi- 
viduals — all things that could have no meaning 
in your mind. You see fully that discussion is 
not worth while. Therefore kindly spare us your 
theatrical display and your warlike exaggera- 
tions. The only purpose in our minds is to shatter 
the monstrous dream that you represent, the 
dream of humanity bleeding under the brutal 
folly of a race capable of learning all that can 
be known but incapable of putting their learning 
to other uses than those of degradation and 
death. 

.... I make this avowal that with our splendid 
soldiers, whose scorn of your own I cannot ex- 
press to you, we should have been able, but for 
mistakes only the least of which are as yet known, 
to repel you long ago from our territory. But 
we have other things to do just at present than 
to sit as judges over destiny and its lieutenants. 
We are what we are, and, such as we are, knowing 
full well that you will yet kill many of our 
children, and that you will impose terrible suf- 
ferings upon us, we shall go on to the last limit 
of endurance because we are worthier than you, 
because we have a higher conscience, a stronger 
courage, a firmer will; because we shall kill more 
of your men, as we have so far, than you of ours ; 
because we shall shatter all the embattlements 
of your resistance — because something that can- 
not lie tells us that we shall finally bring you 
to your knees. 



356 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

... A riot of premeditated violence, and a 
superior power of unlimited resistance— these are 
the two principles that have joined battle. To 
your miracles in the offensive we shall oppose, in 
default of a better fortune, an active resistance 
that will never give way. Yesterday a soldier 
who was describing to me his first sufferings from 
the cold of one winter concluded with these words : 
"I take it all as I must, because we will not 
yield." That is the best answer to your proposals 
of peace. Our soldiers will not yield. Their gov- 
ernors follow them. In the lack of anything better 
we can be content with that. This will have to 
be enough. You have taken much time and pains, 
but you have ended by maddening us in war, in 
our turn. 

Like those dead men whom Ulysses saw drink- 
ing blood in order to revive, we have drunk of 
our own blood, in the fashion of the legendary 
Beaumanior, and we shall also shed such lakes 
of your own that you will be drowned in it: 
Instead of scattering our men foolishly, we are 
content to preserve them carefully for this work 
on the Franco-British front, the only point where 
the issue of the war can be decided. After that, 
but only after that, Chief of the Boches, we shall 
consent to talk. 

November 22, 1915. 

On a Toue of Inspection 

... If General Joffre were a humorist, he 
would send a nice safe-conduct, with the fasces 
and the axe of the Republic, to the Chief of all 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 357 

Bochery, whom I would undertake to go and seek 
at Chalons, to conduct him to the trench at Souain, 
where he could make the acquaintance of my good 
friend Sergeant Poissonnier. 

Poissonnier is not tired. You will find him fresh 
and rosy, your Majesty, as smiling and merry as 
could be desired. I should recommend patience 
to him, as you have to your own men, but only to 
hold him back, not to urge him on. He is trying 
to sleep, like your own men, under the fire of 
machine-gun and cannon, in the muddy pools of 
the trenches, and he sleeps and wakes contented, 
because the enormous catastrophe which you in- 
augurated has given him the firm consciousness 
of a magnificent destiny for which he and his com- 
rades had not believed they were born. Under 
the bombs and among the corpses I could say 
nothing to him, because he inspired in me the 
respect of great things simple in their grandeur. 
Foolish encouragement, even at the moment of 
leave-taking, would have lighted a flame of indig- 
nation in his eyes. Above all, he would have been 
convulsed with laughter at the mere question, 
"Aren't you tired?" 

He does not know how to be tired, even when 
he is staining the parapet with his blood, because 
nothing less than death, in its finality, is necessary 
to give him pause. He would still preserve, up to 
his last gasp, an unconquerable resolution. For 
the contrast, one must see filing before him the 
Boches from the opposing trenches who come rush- 
ing up with their arms aloft, crying, "We're glad 
enough to be through with this!" I might offer 
you a chance to read them a lecture, Sire, if it were 



358 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

not always too late and if I could save you from 
the too lively testimonials of their execration. 

And when you have interrogated Sergeant Pois- 
sonnier, from Eoubaix, out of my presence if you 
like, we shall take the road from Souain to 
Suippes, without dropping your incognito, and 
you will admire, as I do, that impressive stream 
of men whom shells never cause to waver in their 
line, and who go on at a steady pace, their smiles 
wreathed in blue smoke, toward the Navarin 
farm, where there are Boches to kill. 

I should like you also to pause at the first-aid 
stations and before the ambulances to see your 
exponents of Deutschland uber Alles with their 
faces distorted in dumb rage at the sight of our 
men, bleeding freely but debating with each other 
as to the moment, longed for with their power of 
hope, when they will 1 be able to get back to their 
trench. 

And when you have seen that, and plenty of 
other things besides, I will offer you a tour of 
inspection in our land of France. You certainly 
owe a visit of courtesy to our Englishmen at 
Calais, at Eouen, at Brest, and at Nantes. Oh, 
they don't look tired, those fellows! In fact, I 
think they are having a good time. Ajid then Cler- 
mont-Ferrand, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Lyons 
are worthy of a glimpse, with many other towns, 
and also our countrysides, where I will show you 
women following the plow, quite as impervious 
to fatigue as the men bent with age and the laugh- 
ing little ones who accompany them as merry 
moral supporters. 

You will seek to solve the riddle of the fire that 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 359 

flames in all these eyes and if you do not guess 
right I will tell you in plain words that your men 
are weary because your " organization' ' has left 
them nothing but bodily strength, whereas our 
" levity "-T- blameworthy enough at certain times — 
has nevertheless allowed us to keep full possession 
of the higher powers of conscience and of will. 
Finally you will not refuse to pause with me at 
the window of our banks; and I will let you see 
how these Frenchmen, so much detested, excel in 
building up, out of mountains of sous, pyramids 
of billions of francs at sight of which I shall be 
happy to see you go into raptures. 

I shall whisper in your ear, in conclusion, these 
words of General Alexiefr*: "We are just begin- 
ning to fight.' ' Then you will understand quite 
fully this opinion from the Hamburger Volks- 
zeitung: "Germany must take advantage of the 
present favorable situation to open conversations 
looking toward peace. If she allows this moment 
to pass, it will be too late." 

After which I shall offer you my finest military 
salute, and we shall wait to see what happens. 

November 29, 1915. 

The Questions of the Houb 

. . . Is it from the superiority of our arma- 
ment that we can expect the final decision? Cer- 
tainly not, for the German industrialization of 
war permits them to manufacture rifles, cannon, 
and munitions in quantities far superior to any- 
thing that we can accomplish. 

What, then? Well, there are the men, the 



360 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Frenchmen, the soldiers, the poilus — call them by 
what name you will. It is they whose marvelous 
exertions have enabled us slowly to gain, from 
day to day, some advantage over an enemy whose 
defenses in the field are marvels of art, and to 
inspire confidence abroad in the success of our 
arms, as well as to make the shudder of death 
pass in advance through the hearts of our 
enemies. 

This reservoir of unconquerable heroes is the 
treasure vault of our military Bank of France, to 
which the most generous blood is offered lavishly. 
We guard it not less jealously than the other treas- 
ure. Gold and the most valuable paper are but 
means to an end. Those heroes constitute, for at 
certain times they actually are, a torrent which 
carries everything before it. That is understood. 
We have given all our men. Their blood flows day 
by day, and we cannot grudge it. Take them, O 
native land, if thou hast need of them. Plunge 
them, thrilling with the courage of youth, into the 
ghastly furnace if they must die in order that thou 
mayest live. We bleed with them, and with thee, 
but no cowardly trembling shall betray our wound, 
and our weeping mothers will accept the destiny 
that is theirs. 

But you, men who stand forth as the expression 
of the great and sacred idol, do not forget that 
we have need of this generous blood until the 
end — until the very end. You say this easily in 
your exuberant perorations. That is not enough. 
You must put the words into action— that is to 
say, you must know how to lavish and to save at 
once. Since we shall have need of every sacrifice 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 361 

that is useful, yon would be criminal if you asked 
a sacrifice that was vain. Germany is already 
finding it necessary to husband her effectives, 
which are ill-proportioned to the length of the 
front which her madness has imposed on her. 
The day is not very far off, perhaps, when we shall 
perform such marvels as shall lead to a decision. 

A puny little poilu, who nevertheless has eyes 
of fire and a soul of steel, will not be less precious 
in our last cohorts than the heaviest cannon of 
our heaviest artillery. Guard the soldiers, pre- 
serve them, like the magic jewels of the ornaments 
of France, since it is in beauty that our country 
must be reborn. France will need them in her 
victory, and in her peace will be no less ardent 
to acclaim them, since it is the peace of the France 
of to-morrow that we are making by giving our 
lives in the war of to-day. Yes, we shall have 
before our eyes a population of wounded men, 
some with half their bodies gone, others with 
twisted limbs, and contracted muscles, and move- 
ments half-made but suddenly arrested, but our 
women will love them thus, for the most noble 
halo of grandeur will be about their pale counte- 
nances, and if their bodies have shrunk, their 
souls will be enlarged — shame being reserved for 
those who will not be able to answer when some- 
one asks them: "Where were you!" 

The women who will have nursed them, and 
dressed their wounds, and consoled them in their 
bloody bandages will still desire to serve as a 
crutch for them in life, after having saved them 
from the jaws of death. And we shall be a greater 
people, because we shall have come out of the 



362 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

formidable trial with a higher training. And the 
least one among us will be proud to have served 
some purpose in one of humanity's most noble 
works. 

November 30, 1915. 

The Women 

The Figaro ridicules the idea which is making 
progress at Berlin and at Vienna of an actual 
mobilization of women, whether to augment the 
forces of industrial labor or to replace men in the 
work in which they can be replaced. Alas, my 
good co-worker, we have something else to think 
of than a satire on ' ' The Follies of 1915. ' ' There 
is a time for laughing. There is another for 
measuring one's forces unflinchingly against the 
realities of a merciless struggle. If one will but 
reflect fully on the deep meaning of the term 
"universal military service," which is to say, the 
employment with reservation of all the national 
energies in the service of the country, one will 
very quickly understand that our cause, thus 
conceived, is thus ennobled with a higher dignity 
in its aim and in its means. 

I should hold myself a madman if I thought 
that the present war would be the last that men 
should see. The extent of the battlefield, the 
ever-increasing value of the stakes, no longer 
solely for conquering chiefs, but more especially 
for the ethnic groups of the civilized world, would 
seem to bear witness rather to a redoubtable 
evolution of engines of might than to a relaxa- 
tion in the desire to take the offensive or in 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 363 

exertions for defense at any price. Let ns not 
lose ourselves in prophecies, always easy to make, 
and let us hold, as necessity invites us to do in 
a fashion pressing enough, to the bloody realities 
of the present. 

The reality of the present is that the four great- 
est peoples of the ancient continent of civilization 
are at swords y points in a mortal struggle for 
the conquest or the defense of principles which 
they esteem highly enough to sacrifice everything 
for them. Germany wants mastery — Beutschland 
fiber Alles — and is totally lacking in scruples as 
to the means for achieving it. The Latin, the 
Englishman, and the Russian (and their history 
has been also one of more or less fortunate at- 
tempts at mastery) have promised themselves to 
perish sooner than to stretch out dishonored hands 
in servitude to a barbarism in which the develop- 
ment of the human spirit no longer appears ex- 
cept as an organized power of decivilization. 

It is the most splendid and most noble battle 
of man, to which the wars of the French Revolu- 
tion and of the Empire appear to-day as no more 
than an agitated prelude. Armed for the con- 
quest of the right, the Revolution was engulfed 
in other enterprises of conquest on which nothing 
stable could be founded. It is our good fortune 
to-day that never were the questions so clearly 
put — the subjection of all under the saber of a 
master, or independence of nation and of man. 

There are some neutrals, near and far away, 
whose destiny (and I do not envy it) is to look 
on. Perhaps they will soon come to discover that 
they are no less interested than the combatants 



364 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

themselves in saving human honor from the 
shameless brutalities of savagery. Liberated by 
us, or subjected (without a combat) by Wilhelm, 
they will have been, indeed they are now, among 
the stakes of the tragic game to which we are 
giving our lives and our goods, for ourselves and 
for all. We have counted too much upon some 
of them. Let each one guard the part of honor 
as he has seen fit to choose it. We have no longer 
any time for recrimination or for dispute as to 
the measure of our effort for liberation when the 
noblest destiny demands our all. 

Ah, yes! All the effort of all men, that is the 
full contribution of blood and of gold which is 
required of us by the high fortune to which the 
long- continued sacrifices of our fathers have edu- 
cated us. All— that means that no person must 
be lacking. Is it enough, then, for women and 
children and aged men to perish from privations 
or fall under the sufferings of cold and hunger, 
like those who are strewn along the roads of 
Serbia? No. If destiny wills it that they must 
perish, they owe it to their native land to refuse 
no effort — none whatever — that is within their 
power. This they owe to that native land which 
unites us all and offers us a cause that calls for 
undivided duty. 

I was not afraid to say it long ago — the old 
men and the children will have their turn. The 
blood of our men is flowing in a great river — a 
river of hope which will fructify our future. Our 
smiling wounded soldiers ask nothing of us but 
to restore to them their strength for the combat. 
At their bedsides mothers, wives, sisters, and 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 365 

daughters, are at work, claiming their part in the 
common duty. Is it enough? I say no, since 
France wants no less than the total sacrifice of 
every person. 

The philosophers have painfully come, after 
passing through the entanglements of meta- 
physical discussion, to the point of believing and 
even of saying that the dignity of woman is 
possibly not inferior to that of man. Without 
waiting for this laborious demonstration, some 
modest creatures have begun by taking, of their 
own motion, the place to which they have proved 
their right by filling it. 

Because she was of a soul at once tender and 
valorous, full of idealism and of force, Joan of 
Arc deserved the reward of high achievement. 
Yesterdav Miss Edith Cavell, whom we shall not 
allow the Germans to forget, gained for herself, 
without a spoken word, a page of immortality. 
And think of those heroic nurses of the New 
Zealand steamer Marquette or of the transport 
Amalia in the Channel, who, seeing their ship 
torpedoed, refused to take their places in the life- 
boats, saying to the men who wanted to save 
them, "No, men first! England needs soldiers/' 
And think of the men, magnificently accepting 
life, and the women, in the highest expression of 
human nobility, watching them depart, thanking 
them for their sacrifice of manly honor, at the 
moment of sinking. 

After such an example, an example that can 
never be surpassed, who will dispute the right 
and the duty of the "weaker sex" to develop, 
for the salvation of a land that is theirs as fully 



366 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

as it is ours, the full moral and physical strength 
that is given to them? In a war to the last ex- 
tremity, in which all the powers of the human 
creature are required to expend themselves be- 
yond measure, we must lavish all the gifts we 
have, regretting only that we can never do 
enough. 

Proudly we watch our beardless little soldiers 
departing, erect under their packs, intoxicated 
with their lofty mission of going forth to great 
deeds which they have hardly begun to imagine. 
The pride of their grandmother, their mother, 
their sister, is of some availing influence upon the 
nobility of their valor. The highest of human 
emotions transports them beyond the common 
cares of human creatures, because they are going 
to give themselves for the most magnificent ideal 
of unselfish love. They feel that their day has 
come. High purpose tempts their happy youth, 
and their brisk step, which makes the earth re- 
sound as if under the stroke of an inflexible will, 
proclaims to us that they will go, joyously, to the 
summits of glory. Go on, children of ours, the 
honor of the blood of your race, the high glory of 
your native land, go on to rejoin your fathers and 
brothers who signal to tell you that there are 
places of heroism by their sides. 

The class of 1916 is going to take the path to 
the front, the class of 1917 will soon be called. 
And you of 1918, does it not seem to you that the 
delay is very long? To gain patience I notice that 
many of you are preparing yourselves through 
military exercises. Keep it up, my friends, you 
will be stronger and better men for it. Let it not 



FEANCE FACING GERMANY 367 

be said that you were less worthy than your 
elders. Would you agree to be placed in the sec- 
ond rank because of inferior physical develop- 
ment? The fire in your eyes tells me that you 
are wondering whether it is enough, for you, to 
be in the first. Take your rightful rank, therefore. 
By you, as by all the others, France will be saved, 
and the greatest of your ancestors will smile to 
see themselves equaled by their children. 

And who will dispute the right and the duty of 
the women to take their own true place in the army 
of the workers for France, that she may be saved 
from death? All the vast domain of the services 
of the rear is open to their zeal and to their in- 
cessant devotion. As yet they have occupied but 
a slight part of it. It is very well to care for the 
wounded, to knit woolen garments, to economize 
upon necessities in order that something may be 
saved for the little packet for the soldier. But 
more must be done. What would be the use of 
expending force in silent suffering? France has 
need of all Frenchmen, of all Frenchwomen. Who 
would hold back when France has called? 

In the valleys of Normandy one may see women, 
children, and aged men bent over their labors in 
the field. Through their efforts the crops have 
been raised, by their work our people have been 
able to live to-day and will be able to live to- 
morrow. They have thus instinctively shown the 
path to duty. Is it known that in their need of 
effectives, which presages the beginning of their 
end, the Germans have already 20,000 women 
miners, at work underground, in the basin of the 



368 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

Buhr? It seems as if our destiny is to be always 
behindhand. But we have shown that we know 
how to make up for lost time. Let us get to work, 
everywhere. The program is simple indeed. Let 
not a man of the rear occupy a place — not one, 
I say — in which a woman, in the employment of 
her full strength, could replace him. 

. . . Let those of the rear not w^ait until they 
are pushed, by a scornful feminine hand, to posts 
nearer the front. There are places that may be 
filled even in public and private administrative 
ranks. The good workers in the factories are at 
their post of combat. I am one of those who 
called them thither. Having nothing in common 
with the slacker, they themselves proclaim that 
in every position where strength and technical 
skill are not required a reliable woman can replace 
a man whom his age calls to the colors. 

I know that nothing is urgent in all this as 
yet. None the less, it is time to be thinking. (The 
moment will soon be here for considering the 
details of the matter.) The fine ladies themselves, 
who are the ornament, but not the vital substance 
of the French nation, may make themselves use- 
ful washing and dressing the children of working 
women who are at their tasks. Everybody to 
arms ! France must not be less proud of its women 
than of their sons. 

December 21, 1915. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 369 

The Account 

The commission appointed to investigate the 
principal acts of German barbarism has just 
presented a new report, which, in company with 
the preceding ones, makes a most formidable in- 
dictment of the ways of Bochery. 

... As to the mere fact of the German atroci- 
ties there is not much left to say. The opinion 
of all the peoples of the earth is already settled. 
The immortal phrase in which the men of so- 
called high culture defended their compatriots by 
saying that they had committed no other acts 
than those of disciplined cruelty will remain in 
the annals of history as the innocently cynical 
avowal of the most abominable crimes against 
civilization and humanity. 

If it were necessary to enlighten men's minds 
as to the future result of that universal conquest 
by Germany which would set loose upon us a 
ghastly tempest of steel and fire, the mere recital 
of these first deeds, in the districts where it was 
possible for the Germans to exert their power, 
would suffice to bring against that project of 
conquest the unanimous verdict of human con- 
science. The stories of infamies which can only 
be repeated in vague terms is no longer necessary, 
since the means for the brute's nourishment have 
been found limited. When one has outraged 
women with the inventions of drunken perversion, 
massacred aged men, dispatched the wounded, 
killed little children, pillaged, stolen, and burned, 
it becomes obligatory on the human beast, gorged 



370 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

with wine and blood, to come to a halt, since he 
has exhausted his gifts for sinking to the lowest 
abysses of shame. 

. . . All that is undeniably established. There 
is no need of reverting to it. The criminals who 
have found a w^ay to reach a lower level in the 
scale of human degradation began at first by im- 
pudently denying the fact, like all bandits caught 
in the act, and then they alleged that it was the 
fault of the victims, whom they blamed for re- 
sisting. And now, having receded further and 
further in their position, they no longer contest 
the incidents, but are reduced to inculcating the 
worst infamies of brute force as the quickest 
means for imposing their civilization on people. 

I have even heard from the invaded districts 
that, trying to make people forget the unfor- 
getable, the soldiers of the Boche Landsturm are 
trying to show themselves good fellows, playing 
with the little children and affecting a chivalrous 
and humanitarian deference toward those who 
survived the earlier shameless bestiality. One of 
our men was given this message at his repatria- 
tion: "Please tell the French that we are not 
such bad fellows." A little unclean beast would 
be offering to defile us with his friendship. Down 
with your feet! The irreparable has been com- 
mitted. 

Between all the peoples of the earth there is 
some bad humor left over from wars, but a civili- 
zation in which Christianity and philosophy were 
contending for the place of first importance had 
brought us to the point of believing that man 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 371 

was beginning to rise out of the condition of 
barbarism in which a Creator who had the power 
to give him all good things had preferred to 
leave him. And we were very proud of the fact. 
The ideal world which we were beginning to con- 
struct was very beautiful in books, and we took 
our place before the peoples full of foolish con- 
fidence in the fine words which we pompously 
proclaimed as great realities. What the spirit of 
the purest religions had not been able to do — 
because they left the human being unchanged 
under a new set of formulas — the "culture of 
civilization" had promised to accomplish, and the 
external appearance of life having been modified 
we were ready to decree that the inner man was 
in a way to transcend his humanity. 

... In 1870 Germany had dismembered and 
robbed us, but many Frenchmen who stand re- 
vealed to-day as unimpeachable patriots were 
doing their best to forget it. Neutral peoples said 
to themselves that after all it was only France 
that had suffered, and some persons even re- 
proached us for our regrets. And anyhow, the 
universal reconciliation of men was coming in a 
"scientific" organization of human activities, 
bringing happiness with mathematical infalli- 
bility. 

And then the war exploded. It burst upon us 
like a thunderbolt. It is a war of emperors, 
doubtless, with the age-long ambition to advance 
the boundaries of their empire and enlarge the 
number of their subjects. But it is a war of 
peoples also, for all Germany is behind its Kaiser 



372 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

— arrogant Junkers, clinging to the trappings of 
medievalism, greater and lesser Bourgeois, half- 
paralyzed in their ancestral servitude, and the 
laboring population of Bochedom, incapable of 
understanding liberty as anything but a form of 
obedience. Yes, the Social Democracy which was 
getting ready to revolutionize the universe 
through a just redistribution of economic re- 
sources enlists in an enterprise of military domina- 
tion. And all this people in arms suddenly start 
hurrying their cannon in our direction, very 
proud of having scientifically prepared for this 
day, down to the smallest details. 

And with what exploits does the murderous 
rabble begin its work! With the violation of 
their sworn faith — with the most cynical assault 
on international law, the foundation of all the 
treaties without which there would be nothing 
but brute force to reign among the tribes of suf- 
fering mankind. All the rest followed from that. 
Crime en masse, or crimes by individuals, it is all 
one system. The hideous beast of prey was run- 
ning wild. The Kaiser had renounced the ele- 
mentary laws of the human conscience. His 
subjects could do nothing except imitate him. 
Let us do them the justice to say that they have 
done their best to surpass him. How they must 
suffer at not being able to do more than the 
ancient barbarian invaders! Better armed than 
Attila, Wilhelm II can in a shorter space of time 
inflict more sufferings on mankind. But when 
he has murdered, violated, mutilated, and burned, 
he can do no more. 

Nevertheless we inscribe in our registers the 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 373 

true account of his atrocities, and since a sudden 
explosion of the savage fury of ancient days has 
come to light in the forests of Germany, the ques- 
tion is now resolved into these terms: Which 
will prevail among the men of the earth, the 
ancestral ferocity of the brute or our late but 
mitigating civilization? 

... A beast running wild, did I say? Let the 
hunters come with us. Let the men worthy of 
the name join us against the last mad struggles 
of human bestiality. After his capture, his claws 
and teeth will be filed. This is the lesson of the 
moral account presented by our commission ap- 
pointed to draw up a partial memorandum of 
the German atrocities. It is an affair of debit 
and credit. The final settlement is the business 
of our soldiers. 

December 23, 1915. 



IX 
VEBDUN 

The Cannon of Veedtjn 

. . . Foe ourselves, and in the name of our 
land and of its history, we are defending those 
famons rights of man the mere proclamation of 
which bronght Europe into upheaval, in spite of 
Brunswick and its manifesto of German servitude. 
For this reason our principles are those of all the 
peoples worthy of the name in history, and we 
ourselves are the representatives of the civilized 
world. This is what the men of the English par- 
liament said so eloquently the other day, when, 
rendering to "the heroine of ancient France" the 
homage that marks a definitive reconciliation, they 
called her to witness that the two great peoples 
were at last united "for the common defense of 
the freedom of the world. ' ' How many explosions 
of mines, how much asphyxiating gas, and how 
much heavy artillery will be required to develop 
a force equivalent to that aroused in the massed 
peoples of humanity? 

England and France, so obstinately hostile 
through long centuries of bloodshed, have now 
come to a reconciliation that is final, to a public 
agreement of high principles, no longer over ques- 

374 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 375 

tions of territory, but "for the common defense 
of the freedom of the world." Whoever can re- 
main deaf to the appeal of such a purpose proves 
merely that he is a stranger to the high ideals of 
the community of mankind. The neutral peoples, 
whom I may be permitted to pity, would not 
officially accept this judgment ; of that I am quite 
sure. But the best of their citizens, those who 
are the honor of their states, will understand what 
my words mean, and will ask themselves and their 
fellow-citizens what monstrous disaster to civili- 
zation would ensue if it should be possible that 
with the aid of their inertia humanity could be 
turned backward in its path of progress. No more 
than the stars of heaven can the organizations of 
the earth change their courses. Our purpose is 
very simple : we wish that mankind shall continue 
its advance, while Germany is exhausting her 
strength in the maddest of efforts for a reaction 
contrary to the laws of human nature. 

To establish this fact will not, of course, supply 
us with the munitions of war. Nevertheless it as- 
sures to us, from all the continents of the globe, 
the ever-increasing assistance offered by the con- 
science and the will-power of our friends. And 
out of conscience and power of will the history of 
man, more and more fully, will be created. It is 
for these reasons that there will arise in us all 
the powers of endurance that we need to repair 
great mistakes of the past and to wrest victory 
from the enemy in spite of weaknesses in govern- 
mental direction for which our people are not 
themselves responsible. We can hold out, and 
we shall hold out, because we represent not only 



376 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

the visible coalition of the greatest and most 
powerful peoples of the earth, but also the higher 
concert of the most noble principles of humanity. 
With such resources of strength, what could fail 
us? Our successes will bring their natural fruits. 
Our reverses, if we must undergo them, will only 
arouse for us, on every side, new accessions of aid. 

We control the sea, we have money, and we shall 
have, in greater and greater numbers, all the men 
that are needed — whose decisive blow will only be 
possible when we shall have adopted the idea, too 
simple for certain intellects among us, that we 
must concentrate our men for effective action on 
a front that is too extensive — on which the Kaiser, 
at least, knows how to maneuver. Too many of 
our men will yet fall. But France, Great Britain, 
Eussia, and Italy, with the goodly support of vast 
colonies, are at hand to furnish men to take their 
places — more and more men, without stint. If we 
had been better prepared we might have saved 
many human lives — I know not how many. We 
shall count them later, for our lesson in the future. 
Our sons have come forth with smiles on their 
lips to make the payment. And we too shall pay, 
we the civilians, of both sexes and of all ages. We 
shall pay our tribute in sufferings and with im- 
movable courage, thanks to which our sons and 
brothers will not have fallen in vain. 

That is why, confident of ourselves, and sure of 
controlling our destiny, we are listening with the 
calmness of fixed resolution to the cannon of 
Verdun. 

February 27, 1916. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 377 

Verdun ! 

Verdun ! Verdun ! At this moment we can think 
of nothing else. Every mind and every heart goes 
out toward those fields of tragedy on which, day 
and night, and with an inexhaustible display of 
French heroism, is raging a battle never inter- 
rupted except to renew its fury. 

Awe-struck by the bravery of our defense, the 
official reporters of the enemy cannot help telling 
of their wonder at our unshakable resistance to 
the mad destruction of their heavy artillery. At 
certain points their monstrous shells have so com- 
pletely churned the ground to atoms that the eye 
can discover nothing in its range but a return 
to primeval chaos. Then suddenly there is silence, 
and serried columns appear — of men marching 
shoulder to shoulder, with the officers in the rear, 
revolver in hand to shoot down those who flee. 
Thus the black battalions of the Kaiser advance, 
in their massed formations, to complete the con- 
quest of a soil on which nothing could apparently 
have survived. They advance, and for the moment 
the illusion of a deserted terrain may comfort 
them. But though the eye can discover nothing, 
they have lessons in plenty to teach them that, in 
this mortal silence following upon the most 
ghastly uproar of all the engines of destruction 
they have turned loose, there remain mute and 
resolute men to give an answer to them that is 
unexampled. 

"Forward! Forward!" cry their officers, from 
the rear. And every man knows that death would 
answer any faltering in their feverishly brisk step. 



378 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

So they come on, the men who are to conquer the 
world in behalf of the ruling sword of Germany. 
They come on, marching with an automatic spring, 
because they can do no other thing than march 
on. They come on in thick files, into the jaws 
of the tornado which will rage in a moment from 
the cannon's mouth. They come on in masses 
so dense, so molded into one, that, according to 
an expressive legend of our own men, a whole 
troop of them, shot at one moment as they ad- 
vance in unrelaxing rigidity and are caught in a 
hail of steel, will all die at one blow, and will so 
prop one another up that they cannot fall. They 
come on to the hecatomb in human blocks to meet 
the inevitable blow awaiting them, and this in the 
distant hope that some survivors may possibly 
penetrate to the "hereditary enemy" who dares 
to defend his soil against the master for whose 
supremacy the earth was created by a god of fury. 
To live and die for such an end is not a very 
high manifestation of principle. These human 
machines do not even imagine that another em- 
ployment might have been offered to their efforts. 
Machines of murder, it is impossible for their 
vision to rise above the level of the murderous. 
As for the atrocities which have forever dishon- 
ored the name of these murderers before the 
world, it is possible that at this moment of terror 
the memory of such things is foreign to them. It 
is not theirs to feel or to reason. They go on in 
their implacable offensive with forced passivity, 
trusting in the providential power of violence, 
without that flame of nobility in their breasts, or 
that illumination of unconquerable hope, or that 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 379 

strong will to do more than die, which give to our 
soldiers a principle of life superior to death itself 
because there is transmitted from man to man an 
inspiration to which the rudest tempest, at the 
very point of extinguishing it, can only lend 
flame. 

And now behold our soldiers appearing, for 
their little cannon are at last starting suddenly 
to sweep the field. In our turn we let loose a 
dreadful tempest of devastating shell. Horror 
answers horror, and the slow masses of the enemy 
fall in the storm of steel that mows to the ground 
anything that tries to face it. Great black holes, 
in which convulsive things are tossing, mark the 
place where the formidable human catapult was 
mechanically advancing. Hardly have they been 
reduced to scattered remnants when another mass 
appears, and still others and others, and always 
others. What is the life of men, of their men, 
for the leaders of butchery who represent nothing 
in life but an organization for wholesale mas- 
sacre for the profit of a Moloch commissioned to 
derive, out of a prodigious mountain of corpses 
a supreme formula for "civilized" barbarism! 
With a sad eye their men look on as their dark 
files are falling, and they fall when their turn 
comes, in the arrogance of their stupidity. And 
the torrents of the offensive keep following each 
other until parties of their troops, escaping the 
prodigious harvest of death, penetrate, by good 
luck, to our lines. 

By good luck! But it does not long seem so to 
them. For if the men of Germany are now face to 
face with the men of France, the fate of the Ger- 



380 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

man is sealed. After twenty months of a war in 
which the Boches have really had the time to come 
to know our poilus, young and old, they have met 
them before Verdun only to find themselves con- 
strained to avow that they had not yet learned 
to know them well. That is why they have been 
proclaiming in their newspapers, since the com- 
bats of this unprecedented battle began, that this 
time they have hurled themselves against an 
unexpected power of resistance. 

Thus they have come to be unanimous in their 
frightened eulogies of these Frenchmen at whose 
expense, for half a century, their heavy Teutonic 
mockery has been so fully exerted. Yes, it is in 
the newspapers of pan- Germany that we are find- 
ing our irresistible valor celebrated to-day, that 
irresistible valor of our soldiers which the Ger- 
mans had only too well tested, but which they 
avoided acknowledging in order to spare them- 
selves the avowal that the Kaiser had presumed 
too far upon the might of savagery. Now, they 
are under the necessity of getting their advantage 
from it, because it is the only excuse they can 
find to explain the exhaustion of their organized 
hordes, and also because, when the survivors of 
their decimated columns see the blue helmets 
rising out of the shell-holes that have been their 
shelter, they can do nothing but bow the head, 
overcome by the presentiment of a destiny that 
is about to be fulfilled. 

I am endeavoring to make clear the psychology 
of the combat, since I lack ability to speak freely 
of a general situation of which the moderate 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 381 

estimate that I might allow myself would only 
illuminate, with brighter colors, the incomparable 
valor of our sublime French soldiers. Some days 
ago I was present at a friendly conversation 
between a captain and a sergeant, both wounded, 
whose regiment had cruelly suffered in the 
battle. The sergeant, wounded some time ago, 
was questioning the officer, recently brought back, 
on the fate of his friends and comrades left in 
the thick of the battle, in which he was certain 
that they were happy to do more than their duty. 
The captain had no end of letters. In a half- 
whisper, with straining throat, not without 
trembling, he was telling of the fate of one man 
or the happy adventure of another. Paul? They 
had given him up for dead. And what do you 
think! He had plunged into a trench and with 
his good rifle had done for no less than twenty 
or thirty Boches in one day's work. After which, 
he had reappeared to complain because nobody 
had sent him his dinner. And Louis 1 Fallen on 
the heap of men that he had beaten down. And 
the others! What heroic stories sprang, in sad 
pride, from those lips! 

We have not the time, alas, to pause over these 
acts of incomparable valor. The battle holds our 
minds in thrall. It is on the great combat, the 
end of which is not yet in sight, that we must 
fix our eyes. The Bois des Corbeaux has been 
taken and retaken time after time, submerged 
under human waves that break over it in clashes 
of flesh and steel, under the formidable roar from 
the cannon's mouth. Every hillock, every valley 



382 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

adds to the bellowing of earth and heaven the 
cry or the act of a hero. If heroism were all that 
is needed in these epic straggles. . . . 

Fifty Days Later 

After a series of desperate offensives, which 
have lasted all font two months and a half, the 
attack on Verdnn is expiring in cannonades, 
sometimes still very lively, which are now 
directed against our lines solely for the sake of 
honor. It is a military feat the value of which 
cannot be estimated until the facilities for defense 
possessed by our fortress, at the beginning of the 
offensive, are known to the public. If the estimate 
is not yet possible, even from the German side, 
on which great pains have been taken not to 
explain how the first advantages were gained, 
the great public of the world is sufficiently in- 
formed to be in a situation to give a judgment 
on the results. 

What is quite certain is that the operation, 
proclaimed as "the most grandiose" of the war, 
was theoretically confided to the Crown Prince, 
in order that the prestige of the discounted suc- 
cess might redound to the dynasty, and that the 
imperial minus Ihdbens, to whom had been given 
as tutor the general considered as the most ex- 
perienced of the whole German army, was only 
able to play a deplorable role in the enormous 
drama in which there was no exertion of what 
only the courtiers still call his great qualities. 

He had been placed there like a historical 
figurehead, to pronounce words that might im- 



FBANCE FACING GERMANY 383 

passion the world, to assume heroic attitudes in 
places of safety, — while the aged von Haeseler 
did the work, — and, finally, to make a solemn 
entrance, for the embellishment of chromolitho- 
graphs the world over, amid the piles of stones 
which would have marked, for archaeologists, the 
site of Verdun. Such was the Teutonically regu- 
lated plan of the ceremony which was to be, but 
which has not come to pass owing to lack of 
consent on the part of those incomparable French 
poilus, those dictators of a grand veto before 
which all Bochery thirsting for blood had to 
recoil. 

This is the brutal fact, and before the evidence 
of it even the eminent Teutonic custom of falsify- 
ing had to surrender, having no other refuge 
than the truth. The young booby who some day 
will be — or won't be — crowned, has had to store 
away in his chests of finery the pompous apparel 
of the triumph, for the joy of which he hurled 
his soldiers to death in monstrous holocausts. 
The lurid paintings, made in advance, which were 
to represent his magnificent entrance will remain 
sorrowfully turned to the wall until the day, pos- 
sibly far enough distant still, when certain 
modifications in details will give them another 
destination, in the unforeseen event of some in- 
conceivable victory yet to come. Hope is denied 
to no one, especially when one is reduced to that 
alone. 

While waiting for victories of which there is 
little likelihood, the old von Haeseler, in cruel 
disappointment, has had to desert the imperial 
manikin from whom he had not been able to 



384 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

elicit, even approximately, deeds such as would 
give so much as an illusion of success. Indeed, 
before being relegated to the company of the un- 
essential, he was not able to restrain upon his 
lips the bitter words which disclaimed his per- 
sonal responsibility and transferred the whole 
blame for the vexatious adventure to the General 
Staff, to whom had been committed this imperial 
order: The Crown Prince will take possession 
of Verdun, "the strongest fortress in the world." 

Alas, no! Verdun was not "the strongest 
fortress in the world. ' ? To make up for that there 
was to come into action a force of men urgently 
brought thither, such as, up to that day, had 
probably never been known. It was men, nothing 
but men, those whom you passed by in the street, 
yesterday, going about their affairs, now suddenly 
transformed into invincible heroes, because they 
had silently resolved that the thing which they 
were told was to be should not come to pass. 

Without protection at times, scattered over the 
field, far from the eyes of their great leaders, 
often beyond the reach of food, clinging to little 
hummocks in the ground from which nothing 
could dislodge them, they kept themselves snug 
under the tempests of a heavy artillery whose 
shells fell around them in hundreds and made the 
earth itself groan and pant. Nothing had ever 
been seen similar either to the attack or to the 
defense. At no other time had it been possible 
to accumulate such masses of instruments for 
destruction. In no country could one foresee that 
beardless little fellows, sustained by older poilus 
grown gray, would stand forth, with laughing 



PRANCE FACING GERMANY 385 

eyes and souls transcending human nature, to 
breast such a demoniacal avalanche of steel. 

But this is what was done, and when the 
formidable thrust of the Crown Prince finally 
brought within the reach of the French arms the 
deep masses of those brutes who have been able 
to triumph only over victims who had no de- 
fense, the little fellows in blue helmets somehow 
sprang out of the earth, as did formerly the sol- 
diers born of the dragon's teeth, and before the 
barrier that knew no yielding the monstrous 
might of the "irresistible" drive was stopped. 

It was no longer the famous "French fury" of 
other days. No; nothing but the imposing im- 
passiveness, as if sculptured, of an immovable 
human wall against which the most furious as- 
sault could only break itself in madness. They 
were there, the truly great men of our France, 
clinging to the furrow to which they had com- 
mitted themselves, ready for the decisive leap in 
expectation of which the aggressors stood in awe. 
They were there, living, wounded, or dead, re- 
vealing in the convulsions of their desperate 
might such energy that neither the strategy nor 
the sacrifices of the aggressor could prevail 
against them. Nothing was spared by the enemy 
in resources such as, till then, had never been 
known, and on our side the stoicism of the re- 
sistance was so little theatrical, so fully free from 
all empty display, that the simplicity of the 
noblest spectacle in our annals of war prevents 
us as yet from beholding its grandeur. 

Later on, eloquent historians of the war will 
laboriously descant upon these things, after hav- 



386 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

ing done all they can to darken their clarity. 
They will offer ns massive volumes to demon- 
strate by quotations without number that what 
happened really happened. And men who will 
still be young, with their eye-lids half-closed as 
they recall the memory, will lift their heads up 
and, with smiles impeded by their glorious scars, 
will make our hearts bound with the grand if 
simple words, "I was there!" 

All honor to the dead and to the survivors, to 
all those, great and small, who have found in 
their unconquerable hearts the strength to in- 
scribe, in the history of France, a page of nobility 
so perfect that, in a world which already seemed 
to bend under the weight of Germany, a tre- 
mendous shout of admiration, restrained by re- 
spect, is rising to our children as a splendid 
testimonial in which is voiced the eternal thanks- 
giving of mankind. To our great ancestors in 
every epoch, from whom are sprung our men of 
to-day, the just measure of this glory may well 
remain. France has done much, she is doing and 
will do much, not contented with what is merely 
possible. Her purpose is not conquest; it is not 
to dominate or to enslave. France is fighting for 
her right to live, to live according to her prin- 
ciples, and hand in hand with all the peoples 
worthy to follow the right, worthy to live in 
freedom, she is giving all her blood in the con- 
fident surety of an infinite power always to 
renew it. 

When all the conditions of the struggle can be 
determined, Verdun will probably be the most 
illustrious event in her history, because the great 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 387 

inspiration of her revival has come less from 
leaders of any kind than from the unconscious 
depths of a race splendidly moved by instinctive 
energies which incited it to new efforts for the 
glory of its own name and for the welfare of a 
nobler humanity. 

My friends, let us not pause at this point. We 
are in the midst of our work. On the Marne, on 
the Yser, and at Verdun, we have, by exertions 
of will that are unsurpassable, recovered chances 
which unbelievable combinations of defection 
seemed to have turned implacably against us. All 
the might of ancient guilt has been amassed in 
one encounter, unforeseen by the theorists, for a 
monstrous blow of tremendous energy organized 
for the final defeat of the noblest ideal of human- 
ity. Without the aid of military genius, in the 
lack even of the capable administrators to whom 
our people had a right, but by the mere virtue 
of the most generous blood, by the unconquerable 
strength of unanimous minds, young and old, we 
have stopped and held the great flood of barbar- 
ism. It remains for us to drive it back. Salamis 
was a great event. It was still only the prepara- 
tion for Plataea. At Thermopylae there was the 
protection of a pass. It is on their plains that 
the Marne, the Yser and Verdun saw us put a 
stop to organized savagery. There remains to 
us who yet live the heavy, the overwhelming duty 
of showing ourselves worthy of our dead. Not 
for an hour, not for a minute, have we the right 
to forget it. 

... To the work, then, all of us, for the repa- 



388 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

ration of our mistakes, of all our mistakes, in 
order that our great dead may be initiators, and 
not the heroic witnesses of the end of a great 
tragedy. Verdun is the greatest act of the great- 
est drama of resistance. This would not be 
enough if we could not pass to the offensive — 
by no means to those kinds of offensive the for- 
tunes of which need official interpretation, but to 
offensives that need no comment, those which do 
not consist solely in throwing ourselves headlong 
on the enemy. Preparation is necessary for this. 
Science, system, strategy are necessary. Eemem- 
ber these words well, for nothing would be worse 
than to forget them. Our allies are making 
marvelous exertions. Manufactures and men will 
all be ready at the hour desired, not too soon, and 
not too late. There is needed a power capable of 
putting the enormous machine to work, to effica- 
cious action. This is the gravest problem of the 
day, for with what price should we have to pay, 
in our turn, for a stroke that miscarried? 

Too many warnings have been given us that 
we have not understood. It is time for getting 
possession of ourselves definitively, for measur- 
ing our forces, and for making up our minds, not 
to send better soldiers to the field of battle, for 
that cannot be, but for a more perfect utilization 
of our means; and the urgency of this increases 
in proportion as all the forces in the struggle ad- 
vance toward the final decision. The neutrals 
themselves — who have taken so much trouble to 
convince themselves that the thing that interests 
them in the highest degree must and could be 
of no importance to them — the neutrals are awak- 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 389 

ening to the fact that a decisive hour is soon to 
strike. There are signs that Switzerland, Hol- 
land, and Scandinavia are beginning to consider 
questions that they had resolved to ignore. 

Every people worthy of a future is preparing 
for a new kind of life. We have taken no little 
lead, in having been able to gain an increase of 
glory in spite of mistakes which might pos- 
sibly have proved irreparable if our cause had 
not lifted us to an effort of higher understanding 
for an exertion of will which may permit us mag- 
nificently to achieve our highest work, toward 
which the French Eevolution itself was only the 
first, halting step. That is our duty, the last, 
perhaps the easiest, coming as it does after so 
many marvelous achievements of our glorious 
children on the battlefield. The hour is on us 
when we can no longer be content to keep say- 
ing, "That will be for to-morrow." Our sons 
and brothers were not, they are not, heroes of 
some to-morrow. In whatever form it may be, 
when the clock shall strike the prophetic strokes, 
shame to the man who has refused to open his 
eyes to the real necessities for final victory. For 
on that day, to the call of civic service as well 
as military duty the true patriot must be able 
to say: "I am here." 

March 13 and May 1, 1916, 

We Must 

I have just been visiting the front, from the 
Pas-de-Calais to the Swiss frontier, and for the 
first time, after twenty- two months of war, I have 



390 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

been able to see everything, to come to conclusions 
about everything, to interrogate officers and men 
freely about matters of all sorts, and to receive 
answers given in full liberty of expression. 

. . . There are many kinds of visits to the 
army. No kind of ceremony interrupted the ex- 
treme simplicity of mine. I was able to go about 
everywhere, accompanied by men who were able 
to give me technical information and enlighten- 
ment. / ivanted to see, and I saw. For to-day I 
must content myself with a summary opinion, 
for which I shall give the reasons now or at 
another time, as may be most fitting. 

The first thought that occurs to my interlocu- 
tors, naturally, is to ask me for my conclusions 
after an investigation which carried me over 
more than two thousand kilometers in an auto- 
mobile, with rests of three or four hours a day 
spent walking in the mud of the trenches — all 
this concomitant with conversations which were 
the more instructive in that they led, on every 
point, to unanimous conclusions. 

The opinion which I am able to present to the 
public to-day is not such as to disquiet them. 
Far from that, it is one of absolute confidence 
in the final victory of our arms, provided that 
certain requirements in organization be not only 
discussed, but effectively brought about. Whether 
I was interrogating the heroic soldiers who were 
returning, with smiling faces, from the Inferno 
of Verdun, whether at Verdun itself I was 
watching them at work, under a cannonade such 
as had never been heard before, whether I was 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 391 

following to their very last haunts of mud and 
stones and wreckage the detachments lost in the 
inextricable upheaval of the soil churned and 
pulverized by the formidable shells of the German 
artillery, I have seen no men who were not im- 
movably steadfast in their moral strength and 
heroism. 

I cannot resist the temptation to offer certain 
foreshortened views of them, because the facts 
will always be more eloquent than phrases, and 
because the conciseness of words that issue from 
the mouths of heroes who do not know their 
heroism adds to the most noble -actions a magnifi- 
cent supplement of grandeur. Perhaps I have 
penetrated deeper, this time, into the soul of the 
soldier than I had before, because he was given 
full freedom of speech, whether in the presence 
of his officers or in private conversations. The 
truth is that I have not heard one word that 
could not have been repeated in the presence of 
the regimental officers or of the general himself, 
when I invited confidences of every sort in words 
like these: "What have you to complain of? 
What do you need? Tell me what you desire. " 

Oh, the answers were not long. One might say 
that they were all the same. They mentioned the 
work in the trenches, not less arduous than 
battle. They mentioned wives and children, and 
talked of anticipations of returning home — but 
never thought of it as possible until after their 
great work was accomplished. Some men as old 
as forty-four complained of certain marches, 
carrying packs, the necessity of which was not 
entirely clear to them, since they came back, 



392 FEANCE FACING GERMANY 

after several days, to their point of departure. 
There was talk of temporary fatigue of the body 
- — but never of fatigue of purpose. And concern- 
ing certain of the men who gave the fullest rein 
to their tongues, the officer, far from wishing to 
restrict their liberty of speech, would whisper 
gaily in my ear: "That's one of our best men." 
And the man, who did not hear, would burst into 
a great laugh, because he knew in advance what 
could be said about him. Even the bad soldier — I 
saw just one — however weakened by alcoholism, 
emaciated, short-winded, lack-luster of eye, as he 
stood leaning against a tree as if from fear of 
falling, even he had come there of his own will, 
instead of claiming, as he might have done, the 
excuse of his ill-health. He whined, because he 
had been given a chance to whine, but he was at 
his post, having declined an invitation to the 
hospital. And the captain said : 

"When I arrive in cantonment there are some- 
times, very suddenly, a lot of men ill. But when 
we are going into the trenches, there is never a 
single one — never. The men don't want to leave 
additional work to their comrades.' ' 

That was said in the simplest manner, in a low 
voice, as if this supreme abnegation hardly 
merited a word of praise. It is the universal 
spirit of noble comradeship, man to man, soldier 
to officer and officer to soldier. There are no more 
punishments. That is the rule throughout the 
army, and the French spirit of banter is every- 
where regaining its rights. The complaints that 
we solicited were received amid good-natured 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 393 

bursts of laughter from the very men who prof- 
fered them. 

And there was this unanimous conclusion, 
quietly spoken: "We'll carry on. We must." Ah, 
those words, "We must," how many times have 
you not heard them hurled by an implacable 
voice at the invisible enemy, quite near to your 
trench, in the tragic silence of the underground 
Boche, beyond the barbed wire and the chevaux- 
de-frise! "We must"; it is the God wills it in 
this great last crusade of civilization against sav- 
agery. This man awkwardly bundled up in a 
muddy tunic, but with two eyes of flame under 
the visor of his blue helmet, assures you in one 
word that he has full consciousness of what he 
is doing and of what his will is. "We must" — 
that expresses it all. The soldier has agreed to 
the terrible sacrifices demanded of him by the 
destiny of France, whose history, so heavy to 
bear, but so grand and beautiful, requires an 
heroic redoubling of continuous sacrifice in this 
decisive hour. He knows it, and he says it with 
a joyous start of thoughtful gaiety in which the 
flood of a higher nobility of soul washes away for 
the future the wreckage left by errors in which he 
was nevertheless able to exhibit flashes of glory. 

We must! Let us keep the words nearest our 
hearts. It is the word of command that I bring 
back from the trenches. It is the supreme 
phrase of those who are battling for the grandest 
country which it was ever given to man to build 
up for the attainment of the highest aims of 
humanity. "We must" is the cry of the man who 



394 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

falls. "We must" is the sole thought of the 
soldier who stays crouching in the pit of a shell- 
crater when he has lost everything, even his 
demolished trench, and when, in the infernal 
thundering of monstrous masses of steel, he is 
stupefied by terrors in earth and air turned loose 
against him, and can expect nothing but death, 
and that without even the comfort of a personal 
deed in battle — it is his sole thought because if 
he retreated one step it would be one step that 
the enemy would advance. "We must! We 
must!" In this expression of the inexorable 
necessity of rising above himself is condensed 
all that he is capable of thinking and feeling. 
And he grips at the crumbling pebbles, which let 
him sink deeper into his earth instead of repelling 
him. 

And we admire, marveling at this miracle of 
French courage. But that is not enough. "We 
must" is the word of command of the soldier and 
that of his chiefs also, in all the grades of the 
service. Modest in their roles, the lieutenants 
and captains and majors are worthy to command 
such soldiers. This was not told me; I saw it. 
I know what they say about each other. And 
there is no need to ask them. It is enough to hear 
the words that they exchange, or even merely 
to take note of the glances that pass between 
them. One sees the sublime familiarities of the 
epopee. At this point of dizzy sublimity, a signal 
or a moment of silence has an incomparable ac- 
cent of tragedy. If I have the time, some day, 
I will tell you about some captain or colonel 
among his men, away from the post of command. 



FRANCE FACING GERMANY 395 

Or still better, of a general. Certain officers, 
whom I know well, have deserved, in a measure 
which it is not my business to specify here, cer- 
tain criticisms which have been voiced even in 
the Chambers. I do not think that this is the 
moment to settle such accounts, in which we must 
desire nothing but strict justice for all parties. 
What must be said, at present, because it is true, 
is that it is impossible for a race to have pro- 
duced such soldiers, to engage in a battle of men 
and material such as was never seen before, 
without having latent within it the productive 
forces for a corresponding power of command. 

We have military leaders, real ones, because 
they sprang from our race, as did our soldiers. I 
say it after three visits to the front, of which this 
latest has permitted me to judge amply with my 
own eyes, in complete independence of mind, and 
with a view solely to the interest of the nation — 
I say that the French army, as a whole, possesses 
leaders worthy to command it and capable of put- 
ting it to its best work, provided that, as is in- 
dispensable, they are in turn worthily commanded. 
Their civic virtues are by no means lower than 
their military qualities. I speak of the greater 
number, and it will be agreed that the number 
is great enough. They are wise, they are able, 
and they are willing; and since they are one with 
their soldiers we can truly say that we have in our 
hands the instrument necessary, if the organiza- 
tion is completed by a perfected coordination 
under the command of one will. 

I shall say no more. I have come back from 
this long trip with a very clear vision of what we 



396 FRANCE FACING GERMANY 

need and of what we must secure. For those in 
the rear, as for those at the front, there is a great 
duty to fulfil. Our word of command is the same. 
"We must/' I received it from men who are 
under the shells and with whom it is our task 
to remain at one by doing all the duty of citizens 
as they are doing all the duty of soldiers. "We 
must." Shame to the man who does not under- 
stand the words. 

May 14, 1916. 



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